Ultimate Collection of Inspirational Quotes for Football Players

"If you do the bare minimum, expect bare minimum results. You want to be great, work to be great."

- J.J. Watt

"Today I will do what others won't, so tomorrow I can accomplish what others can't."

- Jerry Rice

"It’s not whether you get knocked down, it’s whether you get back up."

- Vince Lombardi

"Success isn't owned, it's leased. And rent is due every day."

- J.J. Watt

"You can’t win together if you don’t work together."

- Joe Paterno

"To the young: work, work, work, and then work some more."

- Ed Reed

"Stay hungry, remain humble, and get better today."

- Pete Carroll

"It’s not the will to win that matters. It’s the will to prepare to win that matters."

- Paul “Bear” Bryant

"Remember, once you set a goal, it’s all about how hard you’re willing to work, how much you’re willing to sacrifice and how badly you truly want it."

- J.J. Watt

"No matter the circumstances you may be going through, just push through it."

- Ray Lewis

"Winners never quit and quitters never win."

- Vince Lombardi

"The man on top of the mountain didn't fall there."

- Vince Lombardi

"A champion is simply someone who did not give up when they wanted to."

- Tom Landry

"Set your goals high, and don’t stop till you get there."

- Bo Jackson

"There is only one way to succeed in anything…and that is to give it everything."

- Vince Lombardi

"The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary."

- Vince Lombardi

"When you don’t give up, you cannot fail."

- Adrian Peterson

"You cannot make progress with excuses."

- Cam Newton

"Ability is what you’re capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it."

- Lou Holtz

"The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather in a lack of will."

- Vince Lombardi

"Football is like life. It requires perseverance, self-denial, hard work, sacrifice, dedication, and respect for authority."

- Vince Lombardi

"To me, football is so much about mental toughness, it’s digging deep, it’s doing whatever you need to do to help a team win and that comes in a lot of shapes and forms."

- Tom Brady

"Leadership is a matter of having people look at you and gain confidence. If you’re in control, they’re in control."

- Tom Landry

"I start early, and I stay late, day after day, year after year; it took me 17 years and 114 days to become an overnight success."

- Lionel Messi

"When you’ve got something to prove, there’s nothing greater than a challenge."

- Terry Bradshaw

"The only place that “success” comes before “work” is in the dictionary."

- Vince Lombardi

"The most valuable player is the one who makes the most players valuable."

- Peyton Manning

"I am not a perfectionist, but I like to feel that things are done well. More important than that, I feel an endless need to learn, to improve, to evolve, not only to please the coach and the fans but also to feel satisfied with myself."

- Cristiano Ronaldo

"Remember, once you set a goal, it's all about how hard you're willing to work, how much you're willing to sacrifice and how badly you truly want it."

- J.J. Watt

"You have to fight to reach your dream. You have to sacrifice and work hard for it."

- Lionel Messi

"Football is a game of controlled anger. It is a game of retribution. It’s about will."

- Brian Dawkins

"I am constantly being asked about individuals. The only way to win is as a team."

- Pelé

"If what you did yesterday seems big, you haven't done anything today."

- Lou Holtz

"You have to perform at a consistently higher level than others. That’s the mark of a true professional."

- Joe Paterno

"Set your goals high, and don’t stop til you get there."

- Bo Jackson

"The secret is to believe in your dreams; in your potential that you can be like your star, keep searching, keep believing, and don't lose faith in yourself."

- Neymar Jr.

"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."

- Pelé

"I think the thing about that was I was always willing to work; I was not the fastest or biggest player but I was determined to be the best football player I could be on the football field and I think I was able to accomplish that through hard work."

- Jerry Rice

"Winning isn’t getting ahead of others. It’s getting ahead of yourself."

- Roger Staubach

"Trust that you can get back up and not give in. Ever."

- Patrick Willis

"It's not whether you get knocked down, it's whether you get back up."

- Vince Lombardi

"When you don't give up, you cannot fail."

- Adrian Peterson

"I may win and I may lose, but I will never be defeated."

- Emmitt Smith

"Football, like life, is filled with ups and downs, and the most important thing is to keep moving forward and never give up."

- Diego Maradona

"If you're not playing with passion, then you're not playing football."

- Thierry Henry

"I've worked too hard and too long to let anything stand in the way of my goals. I will not let my teammates down, and I will not let myself down."

- Tim Howard

"I am going to outwork everybody because no one was going to give me anything."

- Dawson Knox

"I learned all about life with a ball at my feet."

- Ronaldinho

"The more difficult the victory, the greater the happiness in winning."

- Pele

"There is no pressure when you're making a dream come true."

- Neymar Jr.

"Play for the badge on the front of the shirt and they'll remember the name on the back."

- Tony Adams

"If you do not believe you can do it, then you have no chance at all."

- Arsene Wenger

"Football is played with your head. Your feet are just the tools."

- Andrea Pirlo

"In football, the result is an impostor. You can do things really, really well but not win. There's something greater than the result, more lasting - a legacy."

- Xavi

"In football, the greatest satisfaction is winning when they say you can’t."

- Paul Gascoigne

"You can learn a line from a win and a book from a defeat."

- Paul Brown

"Anyone can support a team that is winning – it takes no courage. But to stand behind a team to defend a team when it is down and really needs you, that takes a lot of courage."

- Bart Starr

"Don’t give up at half time. Concentrate on winning the second half."

- Paul Bear Bryant

"Leadership is a matter of having people look at you and gain confidence…If you’re in control, they’re in control."

- Tom Landry

"Self-praise is for losers. Be a winner. Stand for something. Always have class, and be humble."

- John Madden

"Success isn’t measured by money or power or social rank. Success is measured by your discipline and inner peace."

- Mike Ditka

"A coach is someone who tells you what you don’t want to hear, who has you see what you don’t want to see, so you can be who you have always known you could be."

- Tom Landry

"You fail all the time, but you aren’t a failure until you start blaming someone else."

- Bum Phillips

"Do you know what my favorite part of the game is? The OPPORTUNITY to play."

- Mike Singletary

"I’ve always tried to coach people the way I would like to be coached; positively and encouragingly rather than with criticism and fear…I’ve tried to be as fair as possible."

- Tony Dungy

"Excuses are the tools of the incompetent."

- Mike Tomlin

"Every experience, good or bad, you have to learn from it."

- Patrick Mahomes

"Failure is the only opportunity to begin again more intelligently."

- Henry Ford

"Every day is an opportunity disguised as a challenge."

- Tiki Barber

"You have to perform at a consistently higher level than others. That's the mark of a true professional."

- Joe Paterno

"Good things come to those who work!"

- Greg Dortch

"It's not the will to win that matters. It's the will to prepare to win that matters."

- Paul Bear Bryant

"Nobody who ever gave his best regretted it."

- George S. Halas

"No one ever drowned in sweat."

- Lou Holtz

"It's not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size in the fight of the dog."

- Archie Griffin

"When you've got something to prove, there's nothing greater than a challenge."

- Terry Bradshaw

"When people told me I wasn’t going to make it, I listened to the one person who told me I was: me."

- Shannon Sharpe

"Effort will never be questioned."

- Jalen Hurts

"If you work hard and you play well, all those critics quiet themselves pretty quickly."

- Peyton Manning

"Winners, I am convinced, imagine their dreams first. They want it with all their heart and expect it to come true. There is, I believe, no other way to live."

- Joe Montana

"When you lose, talk little. When you win, talk less."

- Tom Brady

"Ability is what you're capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it."

- Lou Holtz

"When you're good at something, you'll tell everyone. When you're great at something, they'll tell you."

- Walter Payton

"To do things you've never done before, you have to do things you've never done before."

- Sean Payton

"I once cried because I had no shoes to play football with my friends, but one day I saw a man who had no feet, and I realized how rich I am."

- Zinedine Zidane

"To see the ball, to run after it, makes me the happiest man in the world."

- Diego Maradona

"Playing football is very simple, but playing simple football is the hardest thing there is."

- Johan Cruyff

"My game is based on improvisation. Often a forward does not know what he will do until he sees the defenders’ reactions."

- Ronaldinho

"Young players need freedom of expression to develop as creative players. They should be encouraged to try skills without fear of failure."

- Arsene Wenger

"Failure happens all the time. It happens every day in practice. What makes you better is how you react to it."

- Mia Hamm

"When you win, you don’t get carried away. But if you go step by step, with confidence, you can go far."

- Diego Maradona

"Football is an art, like dancing. It requires whole-hearted concentration."

- Arsène Wenger

"It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size in the fight of the dog."

- Archie Griffin

"I have yet to be in a game where luck was involved."

- Urban Meyer

"You can learn a line from a win and a book from defeat."

- Paul Brown

"To do things you’ve never done before, you have to do things you’ve never done before."

- Sean Payton

"It doesn’t matter what people say about me. I weather the storm."

- Terrell Owens

"Life is ten percent what happens to you and ninety percent how you respond to it."

- Charles Swindoll

"Your love makes me strong. Your hate makes me unstoppable."

- Cristiano Ronaldo

"Embrace the new, no matter how uncomfortable, and make it work for you."

- Alex Smith

"I don't believe skill was or ever will be, the result of coaches. It is a result of a love affair between the child and the ball."

- Roy Keane

"The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees difficulty in every difficulty."

- Winston Churchill

"The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why."

- Mark Twain

"If you are afraid of confrontation, you are not going to do very well."

- Bill Parcells

"When you win, nothing hurts."

- Joe Namath

"It's not just about the money, it's about what you achieve on the pitch."

- Ronaldinho

"In football, the worst blindness is only seeing the ball."

- Sir Bobby Charlton

"I’ve never played for a draw in my life."

- Alex Ferguson

"If there is one thing more than others that a successful footballer needs, it is energy."

- Michel Platini

"Behind every kick of a ball, there has to be a thought."

- Romelu Lukaku

"Do you want to know what my favorite part of the game is? The opportunity to play."

- Mike Singletary

"Football is a game of mistakes. Whoever makes the fewest mistakes wins."

- Johan Cruyff

"Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I assure you, it’s much more serious than that."