Category: What They’re Saying

“I don’t believe any decision will be made on the basis of one game. He may not have had full control of the game but I haven’t heard any complaints about specific decisions.”

— Japanese soccer federation official Hideto Teshima says there won’t be repercussions after referee Masaaki Iemoto‘s performance in the J-League opener between Kashima Antlers and Sanfrecce Hiroshima. Iemoto allowed Hiroshima to retake two missed penalty kicks, showed three red cards and 11 yellow cards, and disallowed two Kashima goals in the Hiroshima win. (Reuters)

“The doctors had said that he risked injury if he played, and they [the press] pressured us by saying that he always has to play, and now we are all paying for this.”

— Barcelona defender Carles Puyol blames the press for the pulled hamstring Lionel Messi suffered during Barcelona’s Champions League win over Celtic. (Goal.com)

“Goal celebrations are a personal matter and up to the player to decide. No one dictates what the player can do as long as he stays within the [rules] of the game and as long as it doesn’t result in a caution. He is a very articulate young man and will have weighed up the pros and cons and decided to do it because it was a personal and emotional matter.”

— Everton spokesman Ian Ross on the goal controversial celebration by Tim Cahill, who crossed his wrists as if he had been handcuffed in a show of solidarity with his brother, who started a six-year prison sentence in January for grievous bodily harm with intent. (BBC)

"I’m totally against those who buy under-age lads in another country. We should go to our politicians and tell them that we must bring our children up in our training centers and not sell them at 13-14 years of age to another club."

— UEFA President Michel Platini. (Reuters)

“He is the greatest player in the world and he’s decided to tie himself definitively to Milan’s colors. This is the contract of his life. I hope to be able to do another contract in 2013, but this is proof that Kaka will keep delighting our fans for all of his career.”

— AC Milan vice president Adriano Galliani on Brazilian star Kaka signing a two-year contract extension that bides him to the Italian club until June 2013.

“When you look at some of the bad tackles that have been punished far less it’s completely ludicrous. This is a professional game and we need professional people making professional decisions not these silly little men.”

— Middlesbrough chairman Steve Gibson on the English FA’s regulatory commission after it reacted to the club’s appeal to reduce Jeremie Aliadiere‘s three-game ban by adding another game because the appeal was “frivolous.” The four-game ban for what has been called a minor altercation with Liverpool’s Javier Mascherano means Aliadiere’s ban is one game more than what Birmingham’s Martin Taylor received for shattering the leg of Arsenal striker Eduardo. (PA)

“There are players … who aim only to stop opponents with unfair means. I see too much hacking, tripping and pushing in the Bundesliga. There should be a blacklist of players who intentionally don’t go for the ball but for the calf of their opponent. Such attacks are more damaging to the game than the outbursts of rage from those who have been fouled.”

— German national team coach Joachim Loew. (Focus)

“Taylor’s brutal start [to the game] destroyed the ambition of a small but great soccer nation to hope for a European title.”

— From an editorial in the Croatian daily Jutarnji List on the Martin Taylor foul that broke the leg of Brazilian-born Croatian national team striker Eduardo in last weekend’s Arsenal-Birmingham game. Arsenal striker Eduardo, who turned 25 on Monday, moved to Croatia as a 16-year-old and was instrumental in its successful qualifying campaign, during which it knocked out England, for the 2008 European Championship. (Reuters)

“All I remember is that when I fell, I looked down at my foot and it had turned the other way. The rest is just a blank. My concentration is on making as quick a recovery as possible. I am determined to overcome this injury.”
— Arsenal’s Brazilian forward Eduardo, whose leg was shattered by a foul committed by Birmingham’s Martin Taylor. (BBC)

“Years ago, men thought nothing of spending the whole day playing golf — maybe Saturday and Sunday both. Today, he is driving his kids to their soccer games.”

— Richard Rocchio, the New York regional director of the National Golf Course Owners Association, offers one reason for golfing is in decline in the USA. (New York Times)

“Ajax is my club and it hurts me when the club is doing badly, when it is not competing in the Champions League. I am going to help it get better.”

— Legendary Johan Cruyff, who will be given the task of reviving Amsterdam club Ajax, where he began his career as a youth in the early 1960s. Cruyff, who played at Ajax on two different occasions in his career and later coached the club, said he would take an unofficial role at the club. He is expected to hire Marco van Basten, another former Ajax great, to run the club after he steps down for his position as Dutch national team coach after Euro 2008.

“If you have anything worth burning, bring it down!”

— A plea from English club Rochdale, whose fans worked desperately to thaw its frozen field in time for Tuesday’s game against Notts County by placing 40 oil drums on it and fueling fires in them throughout the night. The effort, however, suffered from a lack of coal and wood and the game was postponed. Fans of the English League Two (fourth division) club are now trying to keep the flames burning to make the field playable for this weekend’s game against Wycombe Wanderers. (Rochdale AFC)

"It is a fresh start with a new manager, a new regime and a new togetherness. Many things have already changed, definitely for the good, and we want to build momentum and start winning things."
— David Beckham, whose second season with the Los Angeles Galaxy kicks off when new coach Ruud Gullit leads the team at the Pan-Pacific Championship in Hawaii. The Galaxy faces Japanese club Gamba Osaka on Wednesday. (Reuters)

“A very important result of this game is to reopen the bridge which connects the neighborhood. The bridge, if opened again, will bring back life as it used to be before.”

— Amer Abdullah Sa’di, director of Iraqi club Kadhimiya, a predominantly Shi’ite team that played Sunni club Adhamiya to a 1-1 tie in a clash between Baghdad rivals on Saturday. The two clubs are located on opposite sides of the Tigris river. (Reuters)

“This is abuse. The rich Premier League is trying to get richer and wants to expand the importance of that league. This does not take into consideration the fans of the clubs and it gives the impression that they just want to go on tour to make some money.”

— FIFA President Sepp Blatter, stating his disapproval for an English Premier League proposal to hold a round of games on foreign soil. Blatter said the scheme, which would bring EPL games to U.S. cities, would be nixed by FIFA’s executive committee. (Reuters)

“In an emergency, we’ll find someone to tie his laces for him.”

— Bayern Munich coach Ottmar Hitzfeld on goalie Michael Rensing, who is doubtful for Thursday’s UEFA Cup game at Aberdeen after injuring his back while bending to tie his shoelaces. Starting goalie Oliver Kahn was sent home with the flu, so Bayern’s only other option in goal is 41-year-old Bernd Dreher, who has only played two games in the last three seasons.

“He looked like it was an ordinary everyday thing. He just said, ‘Get her some water. She’ll be OK.'”

— An eyewitness telling People about David Beckham‘s reaction when a party-goer at a pre-Grammy bash in Hollywood on Saturday fainted after he kissed her on her cheek. (Access Hollywood)

“From our perspective, it’s business as usual. The board has decided not to look at this.”

— Hartwick men’s coach Ian McIntyre after the small New York school’s trustees tabled a proposal from President Richard P. Miller Jr. and Board Chairman Karl E. Mosch to transition its storied men’s soccer program from Division I to Division III by the 2009 season. (Oneonta Star)

“Soon you will have in England no English [club] presidents, you already have no English [national team] coach, you have no English players and maybe now you will have no clubs playing in England. It’s a joke.”

— UEFA president Michel Platini, calling the English Premier League’s plans to consider staging league matches overseas “a nonsense idea.” (Telegraph

“The coach told me at halftime that I had to warm up because he was planning to make me play. I am very satisfied with the goal. It is the most important in my career.”

— Former Colorado Rapids player Alain Nkong, who burst past the Ghana defense and latched on to Samuel Eto’o‘s pass to score the winning goal in Cameroon’s 1-0 upset victory over host Ghana in the semifinals of the African Nations Cup. Nkong, who has had spells in Spain, Uruguay, Portugal, the United States and now Mexico (with Atlante), had never played for the Lions before this year’s African Nations Cup. (Video)

“This is a moral victory.”

— Mexican defender Jonny Magallon, whose goals twice brought El Tri back from one-goal deficits and sealed a 2-2 tie with the USA in Houston. Magallon’s two goals were one more than Mexico had scored its previous nine games against the USA on U.S. soil (eight U.S. wins and one tie).

“That’s clearly not true. I’ve got a lot of Mexican friends.”

— Landon Donovan reacts to Mexico forward Aldolfo Bautista‘s statement that “Landon Donovan hates Mexicans very much.”

“This year it’s a lot more calm, a lot more relaxed. [Last year] was frustrating. But it’s a new season, a new start, a new manager, some new players in as well. It’s exciting. We’ve got to prove that we can play and we can win things. It’s a fresh start for us.”

— David Beckham on Monday’s opening of preseason training with the Los Angeles Galaxy. The first day was certainly more relaxed — there was no media mob — though the Galaxy has preseason trips planned to Hawaii, South Korea and China. (Long Beach Press-Telegram)

“Now luckily we have other possibilities with Brian McBride back and [Diomansy] Kamara back from the African Nations Cup and Eddie Johnson, we will now have even more options in our attacking play.”

— Roy Hodgson, coach of relegation-threatened Fulham, says the future looks bright for the second-to-last place EPL team, which on Sunday won its first game since he took over on Dec. 30. American Brian McBride, making his first appearance since suffering a knee injury in August, was a 70th minute sub in the 2-1 win over Aston Villa. American Eddie Johnson joined the team Jan. 31. (Sky Sports)