Johan Cruyff Quotes

At seven, I played centre-back. When you're so young, though, it's more to enjoy the training and to get a feel for the game. It's not heavy on tactics of a position. We were playing on a half pitch, seven against seven or eight against eight, so they say you're a centre-back, but it's not like the real definition.

The main thing for me is to consider sport at an equal level as you would consider mathematics or poetry at school. It's another place where you can send your kids; they can have fun, but you can expect them to have good teachers, and you can expect them to progress.

I want to do what I can to give the next generation of athletes added advantages in the game.

Today's Little Leaguers, and there are millions of them each year, pick up how to hit and throw and field just by watching games on TV. By the time they're out of high school, the good ones are almost ready to play professional ball.

I won't be happy until we have every boy in America between the ages of six and sixteen wearing a glove and swinging a bat.

I still believe it is important that children have a chance to play other sports because they all offer learning experiences. Soccer is a growing sport and would be a good complement to hockey.

I have been playing football since I was 7.

The way children are taught football doesn't encourage skill; the focus is on other areas.

I enjoy teaching football.

Chinese players are not as naturally skilled like South American or European players, like players who learned football when they were kids. They're not good.

I was eight years old and I was playing rugby for my local club.

I think the first team I ever played for was a YMCA team, probably around when I was seven years old. And really I have vague memories of it. I think, at that age, you're just trying to make sure the ball stays in bounds.

I don't know where sports in general will go. But when I grew up, you just played the sport. Parents just wanted to make sure that you were happy doing something.

When I was little I got to dribble the ball around while my older brother Paul, who played for a long time for Kilmarnock, my dad and my uncle Jimmy - who was at Celtic as a kid and played with Morton and Cambridge City - kicked it hard and I got punted out the way. But gradually I got allowed into the game.

My dad produces good footballers.

My father and uncles all encouraged me to play football: every present I ever got would be boots, kit, or a new ball, and that was just how I liked it.

Young boys and girls should be given the chance to play football.

Playing for Barcelona's academy was a very important time for me and my career, as I learned a great deal here.

My father got me involved in the game when I was four years old.

At 4, I joined a summer rec team called the Sugar Bears.

Sporting culture is needed where marks are given to students for sports in schools, jobs are assured for sportsperson, and sponsors are willing to support them through rough times.

I grew up in Europe, and soccer was the first organized game I played. When we moved back to the U.S. in the middle of 4th grade, I switched to American football and stopped playing competitively until college, when I played intramurals.

The Olympic Games must not be an end in itself, they must be a means of creating a vast programme of physical education and sports competitions for all young people.

If you look at any superior athlete, you will find a strong parental influence. Parents introduce their children to a sport, and then they support them.

I grew up playing every sport.