Sergio Busquets Quotes

I get asked this a lot: Why has soccer not succeeded? My answer is, soccer has succeeded. It is already the fastest growing youth participation sport in the U.S. It has already succeeded at the youth level, no question.

I think soccer in America is growing exponentially, and it's just going to keep getting bigger.

I think I'm being conservative when I say there are more people playing soccer in the United States than in 90% of the world's other countries, probably 95%.

The more people who come from abroad who played soccer and are brought up playing it and watching it, then come over to America and bring what they know and what they play, that's how the sport will grow.

I think soccer is more respected now than it ever has been. You can see that in the numbers of young kids who are playing and the numbers of people who are coming to watch.

Over the last 10-15 years, you've seen soccer finally start to grow at a fast pace, start to get the recognition it deserves, and I think it has to do with all of the people who come to America from foreign countries.

Television is making sports universal; for the same reason, big-time soccer is growing more popular in the United States.

I've seen the growth of this game in this country, the stadiums that were built, the great European players that have come and the great American players who've been created. Americans want to be number one at everything. And they are at baseball, football, basketball. Soccer is growing fast, and I want to be a part of that.

My wish is that soccer in the U.S. become on the same level like the Premier League, Spanish league, or the Bundesliga.

We want the N.W.S.L. to grow. It is growing; it's continuously growing every year. We want it to be sustainable. It's separate in the sense that this is a U.S. Soccer thing, but the idea is to grow soccer in general, and we want to do that any way we can.

Everyone looks at MLS in a different way, of course. Because of the players coming in, it's a better league than before, of course. Everyone can see that there is potential to improve.

I've never had a problem finding a team, a league, or a pickup game. Actually, I'm not sure I want soccer to get bigger. We have so many teams in San Francisco that there aren't enough fields.

Baseball and American football and hockey are all ahead because they have a history. The MLS is kind of new. So hopefully, in time, and with players coming and trying to develop the game, and the U.S. team also doing well - at the last World Cup, they finished above England and created some buzz.

The philosophy of FIFA is to expand world soccer space, to spread out the world football space.

I think - I hope - that we're going to be able to build something here with U.S. Soccer, where it's not just going to be about one lost match or one lost cycle or one lost team. It's going to be about an entire country rallying around an entire sport in a way that lasts.

Klinsmann should be remembered as a great coach; I don't think a lot of people see it, but as players, we really appreciate what he did for America soccer. He opened American soccer up. He gave it a lot more variety of players. You see German-Americans and Mexican-Americans, and you see the guys that were born in America.

I think it's important to make clear, you know, that the problem with American soccer... it isn't talent.

It's no secret that I think that MLS is a top five, top six league in the world but they're not the top league.

Prophecy is what we all have to go by now.

As to judging our own time, and thereby gaining some basis for a judgment of future possibilities, we are doubtless not only too close to it to appraise it but too much formed by it and enclosed within it to do so.

In the States, tennis is sixth or seventh on the totem pole as far as sports go.

When people say 'American soccer,' they think of the U.S. national team. But American soccer also includes Major League Soccer, and until we have a league that produces players at the rate other leagues around the world do, I don't believe we'll ever get to where we want to be.

It's a massive compliment to me to be known in Asia because Asia is the way forward in football, along with the Middle East. I believe that strongly.

I am incredibly bad at predicting the future; I am only smart enough to observe the present and listen to my intuition about tendencies.