Mike McCarthy Quotes

When you join the NFL, you start from scratch. As long as I've been playing - which has been since I was eight years old - the game becomes harder at every level. Little league, high school, college - they're different stages you have to go through, and professional sport is completely different again.

As a footballer, you always want to test yourself against the best.

We're in a leadership position in sports. People look up to the National Football League.

I enjoyed the NFL. I respected the players. It was a great opportunity to learn a lot of things, but the challenges were a little different, and it didn't seem that you could control your own destiny, especially in terms of how you could bring players to the team.

When you play for Liverpool and England, you have good players around you, and you want to compete with the best.

That is what happens when you play in one of the best teams in the world: you have fantastic players in your position, and you have to work hard to try and play as many minutes as you can.

In the NFL, you're always facing an obstacle.

There are guys throughout the NFL that get the chance one way or the other.

There's a lot of crazy stuff in this league, and you got to go out and you got to earn your role out every year.

In the NFL, you've got to get to the Super Bowl, and you've got to win it. That's the evaluation we're all accountable to.

England is really important to me, and the only way I can stay in there is by playing well.

I wanted to play for the Dallas Cowboys, and now I'm fighting in front of the Dallas Cowboys and Jerry Jones.

Something you're aware of being a quarterback coming here-you have expectations, and you want to live up to those.

I don't really care if I play really well, well, or okay. I want to win.

There's no medals for trying. This isn't like eighth grade where everybody gets a trophy. We are in a professional sport, and it is competitive to win. That's what we do.

You are always having to prove something in football whether you are flying or not.

I want to prove myself at Chelsea and be successful in the Premiership and the Champions League.

Of course it would be nice to go to another Champions League final and hopefully win it again one day, but for me, the Premier League is the best trophy to have.

I don't need the NFL to be happy or successful.

I play in the Champions League. I don't have anything to complain about.

I have tremendous respect for both John Elway and Peyton Manning as people and as quarterbacks in the NFL, but I was not concerned one bit with playing in their shadow.

Being able to compete against the best, having success against the best, and to be included with the best - that's something I really relished whenever I got on the court.

When you play with a big club, you need to get results every single day, even more when a homegrown player goes into the first team. It's not easy.

I've enjoyed the challenges of playing in the biggest games.

Coming to Crystal Palace, I'm really excited to be playing. There's still massive competition here.