Martin Jacques Quotes

Soccer is a great game, and the rich variety of styles and passions that come with being truly global makes the World Cup a nonpareil event in the universe of competitive sport.

I've never met anybody who says they don't like the World Cup. If you're a soccer fan or not, everybody loves watching it, and I think it could be the same for other sports.

We South Africans are also crazy about football, so the World Cup can be nothing but successful.

I think that the World Cup is a big factor for this increased interest. I don't believe all of this is a result of just myself but also because of the others who are playing abroad.

The important thing for me was that the World Cup should travel round the world.

For me, it's just about keeping the standards up. We're a small country, so we have to punch above our weight. I'm not a great man for doing something just because it's Irish, and you never know what's going to work. But as long as we keep the standards up, people will continue to invest in films. It's as simple as that.

Big sporting events and spectacles might give the national morale a shot in the arm, but they are too transient and taste-specific to stand as robust symbols of nationhood.

The Olympics is an imperfect interregnum, the parade of nations a fantasy about a peace never won. It offers little relief from strife and no harbor from terror.

To participate in a World Cup is a great honour and achievement. I've played in three World Cups. The whole world watches you during a World Cup and expects you to play innings to win games for your country.

The Olympics are never just about sports.

Being able to have the World Cup in Canada, Mexico and the USA is a great honor for us. Being able to speak at the ceremony that announced they were bringing it here was a stepping stone for a young player like me. I'm happy that it's coming to Canada.

The World Cup focus is football. Team U.S.A. is more than football.

The World Cup has been life-changing, for many reasons.

The beauty of the World Cup is that while thirty-two countries get to cheer for their respective teams, the event also affirms a global pluralism - it is as much a festival of cultural multiplicity as it is a competition featuring some of the best athletes in the world.

You meet somebody on a bus or something, and they say, 'Thank you for the World Cup; it was so good to see,' and stuff like this - it's funny.

Like many foreign students when they go abroad, I was instantly thrust into a position of having to explain and defend my country. That is a very common predicament.

Popular culture is inescapable in the U.S.

I live in Australia, and I am Australian, and because I grew up in an era where we didn't have a film industry, and now we do, it's just really exciting for me to be able to say that I work in my own culture in a medium that I find fascinating.

Our leaders have to stop ignoring the impact that culture is having on our nation.

Having played in U.S.A. in 1994, in France in 1998, as well as the 2002 World Cup in Korea and Japan - the first on the Asian continent - I have witnessed the excitement and passion unleashed in those different parts of the world.

I'm just the same as everyone - I can remember, growing up, watching the World Cup.

Whether you're male or female, going to a World Cup is the biggest thing that will ever happen in your life.

Every tournament and every international game played gives you additional experience which brings you forward, both on the pitch and off it, but there is nothing more special than playing a World Cup on home soil.

The World Cup is as big as it gets.

I feel like I have this different opportunity that not a lot of athletes may have. It's the fact that I'm Korean-American, and the Olympics are going to be in Korea, but I'm also riding for the States. I feel like I got really lucky that it got all pieced together - my first Olympics, being in Korea where most of my family is.