United on the Field: Soccer Quotes Celebrating Teamwork
Get inspired on and off the pitch with our collection of memorable soccer quotes. From legends of the game to the essence of teamwork, find the perfect words to fuel your soccer passion and elevate your game. Kick-start your motivation with these iconic soccer quotes that embody the heart and soul of the beautiful game.
Top Quotes on Soccer
- “Embrace the opportunity, no matter what it is. Look at everything in a positive light.” – Julie Ertz
- “Everybody makes mistakes, but when goalkeepers make them, it is costly. That’s the nature of being a goalkeeper.” – Gary Speed
- “I am a firm believer that if you score one goal the other team has to score two to win.” – Howard Wilkinson
- “I’m attracted to soccer’s capacity for beauty. When well played, the game is a dance with a ball.” – Eduardo Galeano
- “Many people say I’m the best women’s soccer player in the world. I don’t think so. And because of that, someday I just might be.” – Mia Hamm
- “My mother thinks I am the best. And I was raised to always believe what my mother tells me.” – Diego Maradona
- “People react to criticism in different ways, and my way is definitely to come out fighting.” – David Beckham
- “Success isn’t determined by how many times you win, but by how you play the week after you lose.” – Pele
- “Talent may get you on the pitch, but it’s the effort and attitude that will keep you there.” – Alex Morgan
- “The rules of soccer are very simple, basically it is this: if it moves, kick it. If it doesn’t move, kick it until it does.” – Phil Woosnam
- “You can’t score a goal if you don’t take a shot” – Johan Cruyff
Teamwork Quotes of Soccer
I am a member of a team, and I rely on the team, I defer to it and sacrifice for it, because the team, not the individual, is the ultimate champion.
Mia Hamm
I don’t need a captain’s band to lead a team to victory.
Hope Solo
I hate to speak about individuals. Players don’t win you trophies, teams win trophies. Squads win trophies.
Jose Mourinho
I’m going to tell you the story about the geese which fly 5,000 miles from Canada to France. They fly in V- formation but the second ones don’t fly. They’re the subs for the first ones. And then the second ones take over – so it’s teamwork.
Sir Alex Ferguson
In my teams, the striker is the first defender and the goalie is the first attacker.
Johan Cruyff
Teammates are critical to your success. The reality is no matter how good you are, you can’t score if they don’t pass you the ball, you can’t win if they don’t stop the other team.
Alex Morgan
The work of a team should always embrace a great player, but the great player must always work.
Sir Alex Ferguson
There should be no prima donnas on a team, everyone should feel important, from the oldest player to the youngest.
Marcello Lippi
To be the ultimate team, you must use your body and your mind. Draw upon the resources of your teammates. Choose your steps wisely and you will win. Remember, only teams succeed.
Jose Mourinho
You need teamwork to achieve real success, and that attitude comes straight from soccer.
Matt Bahr
Teamwork Quotes of Soccer
Always work hard, never give up, and fight until the end because it’s never really over until the whistle blows.
Alex Morgan
Hard work will always overcome natural talent when natural talent does not work hard enough.
Sir Alex Ferguson
I play in a position that demands hard work and generosity and little glamour, but I like it. It’s my job and I like it. I would rather intercept and steal 10 balls than shoot. That’s what I’m here for, to make everyone else’s jobs easier.
Sergio Busquets
I’m lucky to be part of a team who help to make me look good, and they deserve as much of the credit for my success as I do for the hard work we have all put in on the training ground.
Lionel Messi
If you want to be a professional soccer player, if you want to make the national team, you have to do everything possible to work hard. You’ve got to put it number one.
Carli Lloyd
It needs time. Nobody wants to hear it, but that’s the truth: if you want to have success in the future, you have to be ready to work now.
Jurgen Klopp
Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice and most of all, love of what you are doing.
Pele
When people succeed, it is because of hard work. Luck has nothing to do with success.
Diego Maradona
Work hard to get good, then work harder to get better.
Jose Mourinho
You have to be willing to accept the information, you have to be willing to work hard. You have to be motivated to go to practice with an open mind. You have to be willing to be criticized. Only you can do those things.
Brandi Chastain
Hard Work Quotes of Soccer
Always work hard, never give up, and fight until the end because it’s never really over until the whistle blows.
Alex Morgan
Hard work will always overcome natural talent when natural talent does not work hard enough.
Sir Alex Ferguson
I play in a position that demands hard work and generosity and little glamour, but I like it. It’s my job and I like it. I would rather intercept and steal 10 balls than shoot. That’s what I’m here for, to make everyone else’s jobs easier.
Sergio Busquets
I’m lucky to be part of a team who help to make me look good, and they deserve as much of the credit for my success as I do for the hard work we have all put in on the training ground.
Lionel Messi
If you want to be a professional soccer player, if you want to make the national team, you have to do everything possible to work hard. You’ve got to put it number one.
Carli Lloyd
It needs time. Nobody wants to hear it, but that’s the truth: if you want to have success in the future, you have to be ready to work now.
Jurgen Klopp
Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice and most of all, love of what you are doing.
Pele
When people succeed, it is because of hard work. Luck has nothing to do with success.
Diego Maradona
Work hard to get good, then work harder to get better.
Jose Mourinho
You have to be willing to accept the information, you have to be willing to work hard. You have to be motivated to go to practice with an open mind. You have to be willing to be criticized. Only you can do those things.
Brandi Chastain
Not Giving Up Soccer Quotes
A champion is someone who does not settle for that day’s practice, that day’s competition, that day’s performance. They are always striving to be better. They don’t live in the past.
Briana Scurry
I had to lift the players’ expectations. They should never give in. I said that to them all the time: ‘If you give in once, you’ll give in twice.
Sir Alex Ferguson
I just hate losing and that gives you an extra determination to work harder.
Wayne Rooney
Life is like a game of soccer. You need goals. If there are no goals in your life then you can’t win.
Unknown Author
Practice makes permanent.
Sir Bobby Robson
When you feel like quitting, remember why you started.
Anonymous
You have to dream big and go for it. Surround yourself with people who believe in you and ignore those who try to bring you down. Never give up, no matter what – overcoming obstacles makes you stronger!
Shannon MacMillan
You have to fight to reach your dream. You have to sacrifice and work hard for it.
Lionel Messi
You must not only have competitiveness but the ability, regardless of the circumstances you face, to never quit.
Abby Wambach
You’ve got to believe you’re going to win, and I believe we’ll win the World Cup until the final whistle blows and we’re knocked out.
Peter Shilton
More Soccer Inspirational Quotes
A champion is someone who does not settle for that day’s practice, that day’s competition, that day’s performance. They are always striving to be better. They don’t live in the past.
Briana Scurry
A great pianist doesn’t run around the piano or do push ups with his fingers. To be great, he plays the piano. …being a footballer is not about running, push-ups or physical work generally. The best way to be a great footballer is to play.
Jose Mourinho
A lot of football success is in the mind. You must believe you are the best and then make sure that you are.
Bill Shankly
A penalty is a cowardly way to score.
Pele
Anyone who sacrifices his dreams to reality is forever beaten.
Thomas Muller
Behind every kick of the ball there has to be a thought.
Dennis Bergkamp
Considerable research on successful soccer players and their developmental history, affirms that a good percentage of them have spent time in isolation, working on soccer skills.
Pele
Everything is practice.
Pele
Failure happens all the time. It happens every day in practice. What makes you better is how you react to it.
Mia Hamm
Football (soccer) is a matter of life and death, except more important.
Bill Shankly
Football is a game played with arms, legs and shoulders but mostly from the neck up.
Knute Rockne
Football is the ballet of the masses. – Dmitri Shostakovich
Football’s a difficult business and aren’t they prima donnas. But it’s a wonderful game.
Queen Elizabeth II
Gentlemen, it is better to have died a small boy than to fumble this football.
John Heisman
Give a man a soccer ball, he plays for a moment. Teach a man to play soccer, he plays for a life time.
Theodore Roosevelt
How could you have a soccer team if all were goalkeepers? How would it be an orchestra if all were French horns?
Desmond Tutu
If God had wanted man to play soccer, he wouldn’t have given us arms.
Mike Ditka
If this can be termed the century of the common man, then soccer, of all sports, is surely his game…. In a world haunted by the hydrogen and napalm bomb, the football field is a place where sanity and hope are still left unmolested.
Stanley Rous
If you are first you are first. If you are second, you are nothing. – Bill Shankly
If you’re in the penalty area and don’t know what to do with the ball, put it in the net and we’ll discuss the options later.
Bob Paisley
In football everything is complicated by the presence of the opposite team.
Jean-Paul Sartre
It’s like in soccer: you have to deal with the penalties where they fall; you can’t choose where they’re going to land. Life is like that, and you have to deal with it even if you don’t like it.
Pope Francis
It’s best being a striker. If you miss five then score the winner, you’re a hero. The goalkeeper can play a blinder, then let one in… and he’s a villain.
Ian Rush
I’ve never really liked the Yanks. … You can’t trust people who pick up the ball all the time when they play football.
Terry Pratchett
In football, the worst blindness is only seeing the ball. – Nelson Rodrigues
Liberal soccer moms are precisely as likely to receive anthrax in the mail as to develop a capacity for linear thinking.
Ann Coulter
Never go for a 50-50 ball unless you’re 80-20 sure of winning it.
Ian Darke
Play for the name on the front of the shirt, and they will remember the name on the back
Tony Adams
Soccer is a great game, and the rich variety of styles and passions that come with being truly global makes the World Cup a nonpareil event in the universe of competitive sport.
Serge Schmemann
Soccer is a magical game.
David Beckham
Soccer is an art more central to our culture than anything the Arts Council deigns to recognize.
Germaine Greer
Soccer is one of the most unifying activities amongst us.
Nelson Mandela
Soccer is simple, but it is difficult to play simple. – Johan Cruijff
Soccer is simple… you just need to have the right mentality, fighting in every game, in every practice and for every ball.
Hristo Stoichkov
Soccer is what I grew up doing – it’s my passion, and I’m way more comfortable on the field in my soccer cleats.
Alex Morgan
Soccer isn’t the same as Bach or Buddhism. But it is often more deeply felt than religion, and just as much a part of the community’s fabric, a repository of traditions.
Franklin Foer
Soccer, metaphor for war, at times turns into real war.
Eduardo Galeano
Some [soccer] players suffer four or five fatal injuries per game. That’s how tough they are.
Dave Barry
Some people tell me that we professional players are soccer slaves. Well, if this is slavery, give me a life sentence.
Bobby Charlton
Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice and most of all, love of what you are doing or learning to do
Pele
The aura of soccer is very different from other sports. – Dave Checketts
The ball is like a woman, she loves to be caressed.
Eric Cantona
The most important thing for a forward is speed of thought. Top players read the game.
Samuel Eto’o
The person that said winning isn’t everything, never won anything.
Mia Hamm
The roots of our Soccer Tribe lie deep in our primeval past.
Desmond Morris
The rules of soccer are very simple: if it moves, kick it. If it doesn’t move, kick it until it does.
Phil Woosnam
The trouble with referees is that they know the rules, but they do not know the game. – Bill Shankly
The vision of a champion is bent over, drenched in sweat, at the point of exhaustion, when nobody else is looking.
Mia Hamm
To be the ultimate team, you must use your body and your mind. Draw up on the resources of your teammates. Choose your steps wisely and you will win. Remember, only teams succeed.
Jose Mourinho
True champions aren’t always the ones that win, but those with the most guts.
Mia Hamm
What a great day for football, all we need is some green grass and a ball.
Bill Shankly
What I do is play soccer, which is what I like.
Lionel Messi
When you play soccer, most of the time you got to get the ball moving, but once you get into that attacking third you gotta be creative, you gotta let your talent take over.
Freddy Adu
Whoever invented soccer should be worshipped as God.
Hugo Sanchez
Winners never quit and quitters never win.
Vince Lombardi