My parents were great at making sure I got out of bed when I needed to play football on a Sunday morning and that I was ready after school to go to training on a Tuesday and Thursday. But it was never forced upon me or rammed down my throat. If it had been, I could have ended up hating sport.
I am smarter because I stayed in school, and I am a better football player.
I used to play football for Real Madrid, and to be on stage for two hours, I can tell you it takes the same amount of strength.
You're watching your kids playing football, and you're not present. It's like the worst... it's horrible. I despise myself for it. I think it's a particularly male thing. Being present and in the moment with your kids is something a lot of men struggle with.
I dabbled in football myself until the age of 14, but I didn't have as much love for the sport as I did track and field. I would never have been good enough to take it to the highest level.
I used to spend a lot of time at football training, but that time was later spent in amateur acting classes and my local youth theatre, in plays at school and after-school clubs. That filled the void.
While American football is very structured and linear and static - where everyone lines up, and there's a burst, and it happens - soccer is like the cosmos. It's like constellations. It's bodies moving in space. It's a very spherical game.
I also played two years of high school football but I wasn't very, how shall I say it, talented.
I know I'm going to be remembered for football. That's why I work so hard at it.
After the love of my family, there's nothing more important to me than winning football games.
Football is a game about feelings and intelligence.
I played football for Leeds United under-18s, but at 17 my eyes started to go and I had to wear glasses. The football had to go - there were no contact lenses in 1957.
My favorite book is 'Million-Dollar Throw.' It's about football, which is one of the main things I like watching and reading about.
Football brings you lots of lovely things, but then you have to realise that it's actually a job.
The English game is not faster than the German game. Perhaps there are a few more sprints. But there is a different style of football here, partially due to the weather.
There's still prejudice and that resistance regarding women, not only on female football but in various activities. Men think that women are a bit fragile to perform some types of activities or don't have the ability and aren't strong enough.
I like a lot of sports. Especially football - it's my favourite sport. My uncle played football in Barcelona for nine years and played for Spain in three World Cups.
In football, the only game I know is the 90-minutes game. It's not mind games; I don't try to do that.
People think I've got a problem with the press. Actually I have no problem with the press, but just like in football there are a handful who cause problems because they're disrespectful, they're lazy, and above all - and this is what really gets to me - they haven't worked hard to get there.
Before I was 12 years old, I had no interest in music; I was just into football. Then I heard Don McLean's 'Vincent' come on at the end of an episode of 'The Simpsons.' You know when you hear something and you don't understand why you like it, you just do? That's how I felt. I just thought, 'I want to be able to write songs like that.'
While I'm more of a soccer and tennis fan myself, I still enjoying catching some football games when I get the chance.
I've been obsessed by football since I was young.
This is the great crisis in football now. It's not just Rangers; it's a lot of clubs. Big clubs always create more debt despite the huge income they have. It's almost an achievement, isn't it? They make so much money, and yet, still, their debts rise and rise and rise. How does that happen? It's absurd.
We know, in Wales or in England - you simply can't trust Labour on the NHS. In England, we are delivering for patients while Labour just use the NHS as a political football. We won't let them; we'll always fight for the NHS.
I hear people saying 'the way the game should be played'. Rubbish. That's the worst saying in football. You win the game, then worry about the way it should be played.
Every time you step on the football field in between those lines you're putting your life, your career, every single ligament in your body in jeopardy.
You know that if you play football, you have to try to do the maximum, so I'm always doing the maximum for myself because when I retire from football, I want to sit down and think I did something good - I won this title, and I won this title. People will talk about what you have won, and that is the most important thing in football.
Of course, I love football, but I'm not one of those die-hard fans that never miss a game or with rooms devoted to team colors. At the end of the day, it's just a game.
I wasn't really interested in girls. Only football. I was just enjoying football all the time. There was a five-a-side next to the flat, and I used to play there all the time. It was all about football. I wanted to be a professional. That was my goal. I didn't want to be anything other than a footballer.
Trip Hawkins - and this was the early 1980s - was saying there's going to be a day when everyone has a computer and they're going to want to do more on it, including playing games. So he started up a company, EA Sports, and he was going to have three games, football, basketball and baseball. So I was the football game.
I know nothing about Christianity, nothing about football, and I'm not a Republican.
I don't want to find out what celebrity X, who is a Browns fan, thinks of the zone blitz scheme. I don't think that's the sort of thing that I would even ask many people when they come on the show; it's very obtuse, even if they are an expert on football.
Kids are learning to play. That's why we're seeing an emergence. That's why we're seeing the Under-17s and Under-20s doing better in international football.
From my own point of view, I hope everybody would realise that people who work in Scottish football - referees included - are always under terrific scrutiny.
I don't think the physical part of English football would be a problem. When you get the ball, you need to be ready. The defenders here are very tough. I like that.
I think it's absolutely absurd that we're playing on turf, and it's really a slap in the face to women's football by FIFA and just a show of disrespect.
