I wasn’t a competitor. I would play outside with my friends, but not really anything like ballet or soccer. I tried to play soccer, and it went badly.
I think we have a good team, but soccer fans will know that we’re in a really tough group. The three teams in our group are really strong. The Czech Republic is a very good team, Italy is traditionally a powerhouse, and Ghana is one of the best teams in Africa.
The dads across the soccer field looked at me as a dad just like them. And I was very grateful.
Soccer is taken extremely seriously in Turkey.
I used to ski. I still play basketball a little bit. I’ll play soccer but more in a safe environment, never on a full-grass pitch.
Because our father played professional soccer, being in the spotlight never felt weird to me and my brother. We always felt we could do anything.
Football, or soccer as it is known, is a game of two halves. It’s a game with rules and a referee. FIFA, the governing body for football, follows neither the rule of law or has the oversight of a referee.
I played soccer when I was younger so I thought I was going to be a soccer player for a long time. But then when I started modelling I finished up with soccer because it was too much.
I could have played soccer if I wanted.
If you’re a dope like me, you get every sports channel you can get. I’m watching, you know, Netherlands soccer.
I’m not scared of any other player, but I normally know the quality of the others and try to be ready before the game. But I don’t forget my own style to play soccer.
If my soccer career were over, I would still come here because of the people. And despite the fact I’ve had to skip some school for National Team purposes, I am looking forward to holding that Carolina degree as soon as I can get my hands on it.
I am a guy who likes to do what I am doing with passion, whether it’s a soccer match with friends or golf.
In the World Cup, people of many nations come together for a fierce competition. To field the best team, all the competitor nations know that they need to train their athletes for many years, starting as early as the first moments a child can recognize a soccer ball. No shortcuts. No late starts.
I play over-35s soccer on the weekend to get my fix of running into people and crashing and bashing, and I still have that desire to win in the sport that I play. I don’t think that’ll ever lose me.
I like very much to ride horses. I like soccer, I have had a passion for boxing since I was a child, although it would be stupid for me to box.
The transition from soccer to fashion was an organic one.
Our people love soccer more than they do in Brazil.
I had a very simple, unremarkable and happy life. And I grew up in a very small town. And so my life was made up of, you know, in the morning going to the river to fetch water – no tap water, and no electricity – and, you know, bathing in the river, and then going to school, and playing soccer afterwards.
I’ve had soccer moms come up and tell me they can relate when I say that I want to throw my baby in the trash.
As a professional soccer player, I need to get touches on the ball every day, and obviously it’s a lot easier to do that with a team than to motivate yourself to do it by yourself.
As a soccer player, that’s the greatest dream, to win a World Cup.
Never been crazy enough about soccer to say, ‘I’m a Madrid fan until death.’
Soccer was my first love, and I enjoyed playing on the left wing until a groin injury forced me out of the game in 2008.
I played soccer for 12 years on three different teams at a time.
I played at the Sainte Maxime Beach Soccer Tournament, which was brilliant fun as usual.
Soccer is the main sport in Mexico; it’s very important for the Mexican people. It’s their passion – it’s their religion – and Mexican football was always one of the best in the world.
I’d work with soccer coordinators at Game Changing Films and have one or two combat training sessions with my stunt double, who’s a wushu master.
I did every sport and I played soccer in college.
U.S. Soccer has no justification for paying us as little as they do.
You can’t die from going to the stadium to see a soccer match.
It really came down to deciding between baseball and soccer. Soccer won out because I enjoyed it more.
All three of my kids play soccer. Each one of them started from the time they were about 5 or 6, and we just love it.
My dad has been to every soccer game that I’ve played in, both at the amateur level and at the professional level, and he always had great things to say whether we won or we lost, whether I felt great or not so great.
The focus of our family life was homework and what was for dinner; getting to ballet rehearsal and getting my brother to soccer.
What am I going to do if I stop fighting? Study? Soccer?
Kung fu and soccer are the two things that I was most interested in as a child.
I have a very broad demographic, from the 8-year-old who knows every word to ‘Ice Ice Baby’ and the college kid who grew up on ‘Ninja Rap’ to the soccer mom and grandparent.
Nobody ever calls me a soccer-playing writer, even though I play soccer and it’s part of who I am.
I literally tried every sport and was miserable. Soccer couldn’t hold my attention. I couldn’t figure skate. I’m afraid to swim. So I did dance for five years. It came a time where I was getting a little bit bored with it.
I had aspirations to do different things with my life. I wanted to play soccer. I wanted to be a lawyer. Serendipity.
I was in my junior year of high school and I had been playing soccer and basketball almost my entire life, and I wanted a change of pace. I wanted to do something more, something different. That’s when I found an MMA gym about 45 minutes from my house and fell in love with the idea of becoming a professional fighter.
I lived in Germany from when I was 6 until I was 10, so, of course, I played soccer. When I came back to the States, nobody played soccer, and none of the schools taught German, so I couldn’t continue to excel in those categories.
I’m from Wisconsin, and I love snowboarding, hiking, yoga and soccer.
Being able to play sports in a school or public environment was everything for me – basketball, soccer, track.
The people of Cleveland hate soccer. But it’s my favourite thing and I follow the U.S. men’s national team around when they play whenever I can.
I wanted to be a soccer player, and I became the best of the best, the number one, better than Maradona, better than Pele, and even better than Messi – but only at night, nighttime, during my dreams. When I wake up, I realized that I have wooden legs and that I’m doomed to be a writer.
Even all the top players going to Europe to play helps soccer in America, as do all the MLS players like Beckham and all that, they’re trying to promote it. At the end of the day it’s about getting the younger generation interested at an early age so most of them will move on and play.
Of course I have other passions and other interests, but soccer’s always my priority.
At the weekends, I usually have around 50 kids running around in my back garden. They are all friends of my kids. I know all their names. We have barbecues, put up tents, and play soccer. I love it.
When I was pitching ‘Hooligans,’ with a budget of $15 million, most people said they don’t want to see a picture about soccer thugs.
I still regret that I never played soccer in high school. I chose basketball over soccer.
I feel like I have big thighs. My brother was always like, ‘Yeah, I want big thighs! Big thighs are awesome!’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah, for a man!’ But I’ve trained since I was 6 years old to play soccer, and this is just the type of body I have.
I once saw professional soccer up there in Seattle, the Sounders. I went and saw that. I’m not a big soccer fan, but watching a live game is unbelievable. And then I went to Italy and saw a soccer match; it’s something everyone should do once. It’ll blow your mind.
I don’t think I’ll ever feel as famous or as popular as I felt when I was a 17-year-old soccer player in Modle. Only about 20,000 people live there and 12,000 of them come to every game. Running onto the pitch each week was just the most fantastic feeling. Nothing can beat that.
I played basketball and soccer my freshman year in high school.
My dad was a football player – a soccer player – for Manchester United, and I loved playing football, but I also happened to be the guy in class who was pretty good at sight reading. My teacher gave me scripts, and I was very comfortable.
We play a game called, ‘Peru ball,’ it’s a game we invented in Peru. The rules are so simple. You play with a football and one team’s going one direction, the other team’s going the other direction. Get the ball across the line, the length of a soccer goal. That’s it, that’s the only rules.
I’m not really a soccer fan. I understand they have skill and all that running up and down the pitch and what not.
Soccer players in L.A. can kind of just walk the streets. They have bigger people to take pictures of. They see Sylvester Stallone walking down the street, I don’t think they are going to want an Ashley Cole picture, to be honest.
In high school, I played basketball, volleyball, soccer, baseball, badminton – two sports every season – and I was named female athlete of the year twice.
