The statistics John Wesson has compiled in The Science of Soccer show that Premiership football players are vastly more likely to have been born in the first half of the school year. These were the biggest boys in the class and were thus selected for the school team. How fair is that?
My dad had a couple of professions in mind for me. He either wanted me to be a doctor because he said male doctors make a lot of money, or he wanted me to be a soccer player. Myself, I thought that I would really love being a pilot for the Air Force. I really wanted to be a part of the Air Force.
At least for soccer players, it comes down to a blend of two types of fitness - your base endurance, which comes from longer distance running, and your speed, which comes from sprint-based workouts.
At nineteen I was pretty sure I was going to be a professional soccer player. At that time I played for one of the Norwegian premier leagues. But I tore ligaments in both knees, so I started studying business administration and economics and became a financial analyst, and I worked at a brokerage firm as a stockbroker.
Its a way for you to support the children by sending pencils, beanie babies or soccer balls. That all started because of one of those convoys I was on.
Crime is fast destroying the moral fabric of South African cities, and is becoming a major threat to South African democracy as well as the prominent manifestation of a "class war" that is largely a continuation of the "race war" of yesterday.
I had a really normal childhood except I acted. It was like, my brother played soccer, and I was on television sometimes.
Every kid around the world who plays soccer wants to be Pele. I have a great responsibility to show them not just how to be like a soccer player, but how to be like a man.
They [some countries] borrowed money to go acquire things, Indian power plants and Danish newspapers and British soccer teams. And they did it willy-nilly, and they themselves a story, that Icelandic history and culture and DNA leaves us very well-suited to being investment bankers.
On occasions I have been big-headed. I think most people are when they get in the limelight. I call myself Big Head just to remind myself not to be.
I'll admit, right away, that I am disappointed that we did not have a major trophy to show for our efforts. We were in four and we had a good side, but when you count second place as failure, then standards are becoming fantastically high. We never celebrate second place here.
Play for the name on the front of the shirt, and they will remember the name on the back
Strangely, in slow motion replay, the ball seemed to hang in the air for even longer.
In football everything is complicated by the presence of the opposite team.
I went to public school my whole life, graduated high school with my class. Growing up, I'd go to an audition, my friends would go to soccer practice and we'd all reconvene and hang out in our neighborhood. When I would book something, I would never tell my friends. Acting was just fun. I was a kid, I wasn't jaded.
I really had spent my whole life playing soccer, and the fact that I was willing to give that up for theater, that told me I was moving in that direction.
Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice and most of all, love of what you are doing or learning to do
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.
Jon Stewart says that he was a little kid with a big head. He had very little athletic ability. He went out to the soccer field, and it was awful.
That goal surprised most people, least of all myself