Zitat des Tages über Nationalmannschaft / National Team:
I don't want to get to a point where I consider the national team a club team.
The women's national team is a very successful team, and that success has given us a platform to speak on gender equity issues. Millions of young women play soccer in this country, and it's empowering for them to see that our contribution to the game is valued.
I don't think anyone would say that the women on the United States national team are not great role models and ambassadors. Everywhere we go, we connect with fans, sign autographs, and represent our sport and federation with class.
Ndamukong started out playing soccer, like his sister before him. She excelled at it, played for Mississippi State, made the Cameroon national team.
I live with fellow speed skaters and National Team members Heather Richardson, Sugar Todd and Mitch Whitmore, and Sugar lives up to her name. She spoils our household with baked goods, and not just at Christmastime.
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'd give my life to be the national team coach.
International soccer has been a big part of my love for the sport. I love the Men's National Team. I can say that they're my favorite sports team.
It's a privilege and an honor to play for the national team, but I think that the training that I was in at Frankfurt was the highest level right underneath.
When I started with the national team, it was made very clear I was going to be the backup to Christie Rampone and Rachel Buehler. So for the first few years, it was just me training my heart out and pushing those centerbacks to be the best they could be.
When I left the U.S., I sort of left that frustration and that pressure to make the national team behind me.
My life has changed in many ways, both on an economic and personal level. All major league players are accorded the respect they deserve. In Cuba, it was not that way. National team players were not respected. The treatment was not adequate.
The national team comes before everything.
It's pretty hard to say no when a vice president-elect and a president-elect ask you to be part of the national team.
I've known since I went to the national team when I was very young that I was a different bird.
The president requested me to restore order in the national team. I have been designated to be part of the official delegation to Egypt to help boost the morale of our players.
I'm not saying I didn't have ample time to recover, ample time to get to my best, I felt this year I did fine. When I stepped on the field for the national team, I was ready and able to make an impact, to score goals, to create chances.
I spent my first twenty years in Morocco, where I coached the national team.
When I wear the national team shirt, its sole contact with my skin makes it stand on an end.
But that in and of itself this past year was not a factor in what I did for the national team every time I stepped out there, or in training, or when I stepped out there in the WUSA.
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 gave up on the national team - I thought to myself, 'Well, that's just not something that's going to happen for me.' The national team was in residency camp; I was 6,000 miles away. Nobody was watching, nobody cared... I'm just going to go play for myself and my team and try to be great... and I had more fun than I'd have ever had.
When I was really young, the women's national team wasn't on a grand media stage, so my role models were male basketball and male American football players.
The whole kiss-and-tell thing is a negative approach that often happens in a World Cup. We will see negative stories about the players and it can affect their confidence and the overall performance of the national team on the pitch, let alone the bid to actually stage the competition.
When I started to play football, when I was around 15, 16, I remember the players that played on the national team and noticed that it was only typically Swedish guys.
Rampone and the other experienced players gave me plenty of support when I first came into the national team in 2013.
One of the first coaches I worked with on the national team told me that I was too skinny, too puny, and had no natural acceleration. He said I'd be better off looking for another facet of sport to follow. That was a really, really bad moment. For a long time, I felt as if my dad was the only one who had faith in me.
My first memory of the national team is the 1982 World Cup. I remember those days at our home or at my uncle's house, with all the family and those long dinners watching the matches. But I also remember that, during the games, I went outside or onto the balcony to play.
I think Barcelona and the Spanish national team have been good for soccer because there are a lot of teams that come up playing from the back: with the goalie, the defense, moving up a defender to midfield, playing attacking soccer. I think fans want to see that. They want to see beautiful soccer, a spectacle, and Barcelona does that.
When I was growing up, you didn't know there was a women's national team. Now girls grow up dreaming of playing for Canada.
When I got to the senior national team, there was another Ronaldo, so they started calling me Ronaldinho because I was younger.
You can be one inch from the national team and the opportunity to make so much money and a life out of it. That's why people hang on so long.
I try to dress well. Not just now at Chelsea, but all my career, at my clubs and the national team in Italy, I like to wear a nice suit on the touchline.