“For everyone who loves us and has enjoyed our victories I would like to tell them that our success should not become someone else’s sorrow. We shouldn’t be firing shots to celebrate a victory.”
— Turkey coach Fatih Terim, whose team reached the Euro 2008 quarterfinals with a 3-2 comeback win over the Czech Republic. During celebrations in Turkey, gunfire from fans wounded two people, one seriously. (AFP)
“Now, Dutch, you tremble!”
— Russian newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta‘s headline after Russia rolled over Sweden, 2-0, with a sensational display of soccer that sets up a showdown with the Netherlands, the darling of Euro ’08 with nine goals in three wins. (AFP)
“My future? The only plan I have is to marry [French television reporter] Estelle [Denis]. There are beautiful things in life. In difficult moments, you want to tell people you love them, you want to say the things that matter.”
— France coach Raymond Domenech, announcing plans to marry his longtime girlfriend after the Bleus’ 2-0 loss to Italy knocked them out of Euro ’08.
“Everybody likes to rib me, calling me over when a guy goes down on the field. They want me to see if he’s O.K.”
— Real Salt Lake’s first-year striker Kenny Deuchar, a certified doctor. Deuchar, 35, joined the MLS club from Gretna in Scotland, where his father is also a doctor. (New York Times)
“Well, one train of thought is that you’ve earned the right to do it. The other train of thought is ‘Somebody go whack him.’ If I were on the field, I would go with the second.”
— TV color commentator Shep Messing airs his thoughts on the joys of the Beautiful Game as D.C. United’s Fred juggles the ball four times off his thigh while moving downfield against the New York Red Bulls.
“It’s clear looking back at the match that we deserved to lose because as a team we were unable to be precise enough and fast enough to really pose problems for Croatia.”
— Germany coach Joachim Loew after his team was beaten, 2-1, by Croatia at the European Championship. (AFP)
“This is not the opera, this a soccer game. I know we’re in Austria but please don’t ask me these questions. This is for kids magazines or metalheads, not for the day before a match and plus I already answered it yesterday from one of your Bulgarian colleagues.”
— Croatia coach Slaven Bilic gets testy after a reporter, because Bilic plays in a band and writes music, asked him to make a comparison between the German team, which Croatia plays Thursday, and a style of music. (AFP)
“I never thought I would be at the Euro. My first concerns were my health and return to playing soccer. Playing at the Euro is just a bonus.”
— Croatian Ivan Klasnic, who is set to become the first player to see action in a European Championship after a kidney transplant. The striker, who hopes to play in Croatia’s game against Germany on Thursday, suffered kidney failure in January 2007 and received a new kidney, which his body rejected. A second transplant, donated by his mother, proved successful and he saw action for Werder Bremen nine months later. (AP)
“Even if you get to see a bit of our training today. I train in such a way even I myself get confused and don’t know how we will play.”
— Greece coach Otto Rehhagel, whose team plays Sweden on Tuesday, explains why he didn’t close his practice session on Monday. (Reuters)
“You idiot.”
— What Japan coach Takeshi Okada said to Yoshito Okubo as the striker left the field of a 1-1 World Cup qualifying tie with Oman after getting red-carded for a brutal foul on Oman keeper Ali Al Habsi. (Reuters)
“It was a national trauma. Penalty kicks had just become this huge mountain that the players were incapable of scaling.”
— Geir Jordet, a sports psychologist at the Norwegian School for Sports Sciences who has worked with the Dutch national teams in recent years to improve penalty-kick shooting. The Dutch, who open their Euro 2008 campaign on Monday, have exited four major tournaments on botched penalty kicks. Among the advice given Dutch players is to pull up their socks and breathe deeply before taking the spot kick. (Wall Street Journal)
“You have to feed the cow well to be able to get the milk. It’s not like school kids staying at a hostel.”
— German soccer federation (DFB) president Theo Zwanziger defending the $2.47 million price tag on the German national team’s hotel costs during the European Championship. Zwanziger pointed out that national team success has generated the income that has inabled the DFB to distribute $162.4 million over the last three years to its grass-roots organizations. (AP)
“I have to convince them [USA] not to bid. It is easier for me to convince America to wait until 2022 … I have said to England that until America gets knocked out, that’s where my vote will have to go.”
— Jack Warner, FIFA vice president and Concacaf president, who wants to back England as host for the 2018 World Cup. FIFA president Sepp Blatter recently said he wants the 2018 and 2022 World Cup venues to be chosen in 2011. U.S. Soccer president Sunil Gulati responded in a statement, “We are still in the process of reviewing a possible bid for the World Cup. … Neither the comments made by FIFA regarding the possibility of a double tender for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups or recent comments attributed to any FIFA members or potential host candidates have caused us to diverge from this plan.” (AP)
“Soccer players are not bandits and are not to be kicked and punched. This has to stop. The player was wrong, he will be punished and suspended. What is not acceptable is for him to have pepper [spray] in his face or be prodded in the back with a truncheon.”
— Botafogo president Bebeto de Freitas, saying riot police overreacted after defender Andre Luis responded angrily to being red-carded. It was the latest incident of Brazilian police being criticized for their eagerness to intervene in incidents on the field. (Reuters)
“I’ve had a couple of meetings with the Glazers. They’d sit a player in the stands, I’m telling you, absolutely no doubt about it, just to prove a point. Not to give in to these people.”
— Manchester United coach Alex Ferguson, confident that the team’s U.S. owner Malcolm Glazer will not sell star Cristiano Ronaldo to Real Madrid despite the club’s debts. Ronaldo scored 42 goals last season as United lifted the EPL and Champions League titles. (AP)
"The images from South Africa were horrible. They’re putting an enormous strain on the soccer World Cup. … If the scenes repeat themselves, FIFA will rethink its decision in favor of South Africa and, if necessary, pull the plug."
— Willi Lemke, the United Nations’ Special Advisor on Sport, who said he hoped recent attacks against foreigners in South Africa — in which 56 people died and up to 100,000 were displaced — were a lone outbreak of violence. (Reuters)
“After much consideration with my family, we have decided to leave Fulham after four and a half fantastic years. I have always stated my intention to return to America at some stage and this seems like the right moment in my career to move on.”
— American forward Brian McBride, who scored 32 goals in 139 English English Premier League games for Fulham and last season helped it avoid relegation. He was twice named Fulham’s Player of the Season. (Fulhamfc.com)
“We only seriously considered [Portugal coach Luiz Felipe] Scolari and [Manchester City’s Sven-Goran] Eriksson. We’ve sorted out the details with Eriksson, and we are about to confirm him.”
— Mexican soccer federation President Justino Compean indicates that former England national team coach, the Swede Sven-Goran Eriksson, who most recently coached Manchester City, will be Hugo Sanchez‘s successor as head coach of El Tri. (Ticker)
“Anybody who writes about their fans being the best in the league has never been here because it’s not even close.”
— D.C. United President Kevin Payne on suggestions that Toronto FC’s BMO Field has surpassed RFK for the best atmosphere in MLS. (Washington Post)
“We must extend the period of residency from two to five years. Today in Brazil, 6,000 professional soccer players are eligible to play for any league in the world.”
— FIFA president Sepp Blatter, warning that half the players at the 2014 World Cup will be Brazilian if the trend continues of players switching nationalities. (Le Monde)
I don’t know what to say, I thought we would lose when I missed. I thought it would be the worst day of my life, but the lads believed and we won it even despite my miss. I’m very proud of them. The penalties are a lottery. I think we deserved it because we played better in the whole game. Now it’s the happiest day of my life.”
— Manchester United’s Cristiano Ronaldo who scored the opening goal of the European Champions League final, which ended in a 1-1 tie and went to a penalty kick shootout. Ronaldo’s penalty kick was saved by Chelsea keeper Petr Cech but Man U recovered to win the shootout, 6-5. (Reuters)
“I probably was surrounded by too many young and inexperienced people. It probably put even more responsibility on me. Maybe I would have brought in a more experienced person to help me on the stuff on and off the field.”
— Bruce Arena, on his one-and-a-half seasons as head coach of the New York Red Bulls that ended after the 2007 season. Arena also said, regarding a return to coaching, that he turned down “a potential opportunity in the offseason” but will “entertain anything that makes sense.” (The Star-Ledger)
“It is based on a soccer decision and I am happy the executive committee gave their unanimous approval for it. It means the fans should be able to see the best players in the final, as long as they do not pick up two yellow cards or get sent off in the semifinal.”
— UEFA president Michel Platini on a European Championship rule change that erases yellow cards received by players at the quarterfinal stage, preventing the possibility of final-game yellow-card suspensions for players who are cautioned in the semifinal. (Reuters)
“They threw things at me for the whole game. It was a reaction, and I apologize.”
— San Lorenzo coach Ramon Diaz, who was ejected from an Argentine league game for throwing back into the crowd one of the objects that was thrown at him during a 0-0 tie at Huracan. (Reuters)
“Without the Brazilian, Barcelona would be another club. It bothers me that certain members of the press have insisted that Ronaldinho no longer is anybody, that he is a former player. Without him rivals do not fear Barca. I don’t think ‘Dinho’ should apologize, as many people think. On the contrary. It is the Barcelona leaders who should thank Ronaldinho for what he has done for the club. I think that if they let him go, it will be the biggest mistake in the history of the club.”
— Former Argentina great Diego Maradona, criticizing his former club Barcelona’s efforts to unload maligned Brazilian superstar Ronaldinho. (Marca)
