I make impact plays. I make game-changing plays.

So like any football or basketball coach, you always always believe you’re going to win.

If a man watches three football games in a row, he should be declared legally dead.

My first assistant-coaching job in football was at William & Mary in 1961.

I’m not going to fight because I mean too much to our team, and I can’t afford to be suspended for a game or do something stupid to get me kicked out of a playoff game.

Football is big business – you can’t get away from it. But you have to separate that side from the playing.

Football is a simple game based on the giving and taking of passes, of controlling the ball and of making yourself available to receive a pass. It is terribly simple.

One rule that will work if it is used everywhere, is that when you have a free-kick, the referee puts the mark on the floor to make sure the defenders keep their distance.

It obviously bothers people when Real Madrid win. It makes them jealous. There isn’t a level playing field.

At the end of the day, we started playing football because we loved it.

Phil Niekro and his brother were pitching against each other in Atlanta. Their parents were sitting right behind home plate. I saw their folks more that day than they did the whole weekend.

I was saluted by Alex Ferguson when I was subbed and that made me very happy.

People have to understand one thing: at the age of 18, I arrived at a dream club like Manchester United. It was a dream come true. But, even at that moment, I was thinking about playing in England for some years and then going to play in Spain. Even at that time I was thinking that way, and I always gave 100% everything.

As a part of the NFL, things change every year.

I support Real Madrid. I’m a big fan of Cristiano Ronaldo.

I played a little basketball. Some football in junior high.

Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.

In Dortmund, they say the derby is more important than the championship. You can feel it around the game.

I saw 14 games in two and a half months at Churchill. It was what I really signed for. They were eyeing the championship and also playing the AFC Cup. So I am very thankful for Churchill, the coaching staff and the players.

I am not a dreamer. I am a football romantic.

It’s a big compliment that so many people want to see me. For them, it’s all about football. That’s what they remember about me.

Like a baseball game, wars are not over till they are over. Wars don’t run on a clock like football. No previous generation was so hopelessly unrealistic that this had to be explained to them.

Football changed my life and it gave me a platform to get out my aggression and it gave me a sense of value.

In football, I don’t have a lot of friends. The people who I really trust, there are not many… Most of the time, I’m alone.

I am in the fighting game. I don’t care about anything else. I don’t watch the news, I don’t care about politics, I don’t care about other sports. I don’t care about anything I don’t need to care about. This is my sport: it is my life. I study it; I think about it all the time. Nothing else matters.

What is Champions League level? I saw a lot of rubbish games at Champions League level.

You can say that 2016 was my finest. It went well for the national team, started by winning the SAFF Cup, we reached the finals of AFC Cup, we reached the semis of ISL. I think it was a fruitful season.

There’s no point in making predictions. It’s not worth speculating because nothing is set in stone and things change all the time in football. Today there are opportunities that no one knows if they will come round again in the future.

Nothing surprises me anymore in the NFL.

That’s what you live for as a sportsman. You have to put up a fight.

Fortunately for a quarterback, you can play for a long time because you don’t get hit very often.

Without football, my life is worth nothing.

When I was playing, there were always lots of teams in contention for the league – Arsenal, Manchester City, Liverpool, Leeds. Every week was a big game and a big battle.

Sonny Liston is nothing. The man can’t talk. The man can’t fight. The man needs talking lessons. The man needs boxing lessons. And since he’s gonna fight me, he needs falling lessons.

When we have the ball, the other team has to run. The most important thing is for the players to be prepared to be a little bit wild.

The only thing wrong with the NBA – or any other professional sport, for that matter – is a wild epidemic of Dumbness and overweening Greed. There is no Mystery about it, and no need to change any rules.

They’ll forget all the rubbish when I’ve gone, and they’ll remember the football. If only one person thinks I’m the best player in the world, that’s good enough for me.

As Dortmund manager, I lived in a street, and my two neighbours were Schalke fans. They showed it every day, flying flags!

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.

I love football and the intensity of football in Liverpool, this is what is very good for me.

I signed for Mohun Bagan and then I got the news that Bhaichung also joined the club. The first day he met me he told me that I have heard about you and you are doing well. I told everyone in my family and friends that Bhaichung told me that.

The joy and love that I get from playing football are unbelievable. It is such a feeling that I want to give everything that I have got. I just enjoy it, I am living a life that I never even dreamt of.

I idolised IM Vijayan and Krisanu Dey when I started watching football. After that, it was Bhaichung Bhutia in India and Brazilian Ronaldo abroad.

At the start of the season, there are 16 teams in the top division looking behind them, making sure they avoid relegation. The fear starts in the boardroom, comes down to managers and through to players. The fans sense it.

If you’re a quarterback, you want everything on your shoulders. You want to be the one to make the decisions.

Every quarterback can throw a ball; every running back can run; every receiver is fast; but that mental toughness that you talk about translates into competitiveness.

When you are in any contest, you should work as if there were – to the very last minute – a chance to lose it. This is battle, this is politics, this is anything.

I’ve always been an unselfish guy, and that’s the only way I know how to play on the court and I try to play to the maximum of my ability – not only for myself but for my teammates.

My job is to play quarterback, and I’m going to do that the best way I know how, because I owe that to my teammates regardless of who is out there on the field with me.

I used to dream about taking the ball ‚round the keeper, stopping it on the line, and then getting on my hands and knees and heading it into the net. When I scored against Benfica in the 1968 European Cup final, I nearly did it. I left the keeper for dead, but then I chickened out.

I didn’t take many penalties, but I never missed one.

WIth football you can have up to 28 guys you consider starters, and if they can pick up the slack when some aren’t playing so well, you don’t have to turn those two game losing streaks into six-game losing streaks.

Football in itself is a grand game for developing a lad physically and also morally, for he learns to play with good temper and unselfishness, to play in his place and ‚play the game,‘ and these are the best of training for any game of life.

Shinji Kagawa is one of the best players in the world, and he now plays 20 minutes at Manchester United – on the left wing! My heart breaks. Really, I have tears in my eyes. Central midfield is Shinji’s best role.

Football (soccer) is a matter of life and death, except more important.

You can sometimes play some really good football and not score.

Football is a team game and none can survive or excel without the help of the other.

If someone told me I could play two Asian Cup finals, I wouldn’t have believed it.

Believe me, I’m much easier to be around when we win than when we lose.

Yes, it is one of my ultimate aims – it is the ultimate sense of football: to make the people happy, to let them live some emotions that you usually can’t get.

I have two Golden Boot awards at home. It would be nice to win another, but I wouldn’t mind it if I didn’t.