We bring to you 130 football coaching quotes from legendary football managers of all times.
Football is a sport that has been in existence for many centuries. As a result of this, many coaches have come into the game and the majority of them left unique legacies on their respective teams.
Many of these coaches while on contract and in different football situations revealed some stunning football coaching quotes that have changed the scope of football in a way that was never imagined.
We have recently shared 105 inspirational football quotes from soccer legends, in different roles. You should check it out.
During a football season, many different situations arise ranging from victories, defeats, bad form, comebacks, and so on. These different scenarios result in different insights ranging from coach to coach.
As a football fan or probably a coach, the football coaching quotes and life lessons you will find in this article will reveal to you words of wisdom from top managers that kept them going in different coaching situations. Check it out!
130 Motivational Football Coaching Quotes From Top Soccer Managers
Sir Alex Ferguson Quotes
1. “Only true champions come out and show their worth after defeat. And I expect us to do that.”
2. “Hard work will always overcome natural talent when natural talent does not work hard enough.”
3. “It just comes down to who wins the most 1-on-1’s. That will determine who wins the match.” – Football coaching quotes
4. “If you’re going to be a footballer, be a great one. If you’re going to have a dream, dream big.”
Related: 56 Inspirational Lionel Messi quotes on success and football
5. “At the end of the game, you’re going to be six feet away from that trophy, and that’s the closest most of you will ever get to it. Don’t you dare come back in here without giving it 100%.”
6. “I had to lift players’ expectations. They should never give in. I said that to them all the time: ‘If you give in once, you’ll give in twice.’”
7. “I’m going to tell you the story about the geese which fly 5,000 miles from Canada to France. They fly in V- formation but the second ones don’t fly. They’re the subs for the first ones. And then the second ones take over – so it’s teamwork.”
8. “David Beckham is Britain’s finest striker of a football not because of God-given talent but because he practices with a relentless application that the vast majority of less gifted players wouldn’t contemplate.”
Sir Bobby Robson Coaching Quotes
9. “The first 90 minutes are the most important.”
10. “Practice makes permanent.”
11. “People want success. It’s like coffee, they want instant.” – Football coaching quotes
12. “We don’t want our players to be monks. We want them to be better football players because a monk doesn’t play football at this level.”
13. “We didn’t underestimate them. They were just a lot better than we thought.”
14. “There is only one word to describe football and that is ‘if only’.”
Related: 43 Powerful Paul Pogba quotes on success and soccer
Sir Bobby Charlton Quotes
15. “Some people tell me that we professional players are soccer slaves. Well, if this is slavery, give me a life sentence.”
16. sir Bobby Charlton inspirational soccer quotes
17. “In the sweep of its appeal, its ability to touch every corner of humanity, football is the only game that needed to be invented.”
18. “Beckham is unusual. He was desperate to be a footballer. His mind was made up when he was nine or ten. Many kids think that it’s beyond them. But you can’t succeed without practicing at any sport.”
Arsene Wenger Quotes
19. “Nobody has enough talent to live on talent alone. Even when you have talent, a life without work goes nowhere.”
20. “If you do not believe you can do it, then you have no chance at all.”
21. “To achieve great things you have first to believe it.” – Football coaching quotes
22. “A football team is like a beautiful woman. When you do not tell her, she forgets she is beautiful.“
23. “Young players need freedom of expression to develop as creative players. They should be encouraged to try skills without fear of falling.”
24. “Football is an art, like dancing is an art – but only when it’s well done it becomes an art.”
25. “I believe in work, in connections between the players, I think what makes football great is that it is a team sport. You can win in different ways, by being more of a team, or by having better individual players. It is the team ethic that interests me, always.”
26. “No matter how much money you earn, you can only eat three meals a day and sleep in one bed.”
Johan Cruyff Football Quotes
27. “Choose the best players for every position and you’ll end up not with a strong 11, but with 11 strong 1’s.”
28. “If you have the ball you must make the field as big as possible. If you don’t have the ball you must make it as small as possible.” – Football coaching quotes
29. “Football is simple but the hardest thing to do is play simple football.”
30. “To win you have to score one more goal than your opponent.“
31. “You have got to shoot, otherwise you can’t score.”
32. “Without the ball, you can’t win.“
33. “Technique is not being able to juggle a ball 1,000 times. Anyone can do that by practicing. Then you can work in the circus. Technique is passing the ball with one touch, with the right speed, at the right foot of your teammate.”
34. “I’m ex-player, ex-technical director, ex-coach, ex-manager, ex-honorary president. A nice list that once again shows that everything comes to an end.”
Related: 80 Inspirational Adama Traore quotes about football
Franz Beckenbauer Quotes
35. “It is not the strong one that wins, the one that wins is strong.”
36. “Possession means nothing when the opponent takes its chances.”
37. “Penalty shooting is always an uncertain affair because there is a lot of luck involved.”
38. “Football is one of the world’s best means of communication. It is impartial, apolitical, and universal. Football unites people around the world every day. Young or old, players or fans, rich or poor, the game makes everyone equal, stirs the imagination, makes people happy and makes them sad.” – Football coaching quotes
39. “As someone who played a team sport, I feel a bit uncomfortable being ranked as an individual so high.”
40. “The trouble for today’s footballers is they have too many distractions. We used to get our old players coming to watch training with football magazines in their hands. Now, more often than not, they are checking the share prices.”
41. “There’s only one possibility: win, draw, or lose.”
Juan Manuel Lillo Quotes
42. “I understand clearly why coaches are fired: for losing. I still don’t understand why we are hired. It is a mystery like that of Coca Cola.”
43. “Whoever knows only football doesn’t even know anything about football.”
44. “It is now much more important in football what happens from Monday to Friday. What happens on Sunday matters less every time.”
45. “Football is a sport you play with the most disobedient part of the body: the foot.” – Football coaching quotes
Bill Shankly Coaching Quotes
46. “If a player is not interfering with play or seeking to gain an advantage, then he should be.”
47. “Football (soccer) is a matter of life and death, except more important.”
48. “If you are first, you are first. If you are second, you are nothing.”
49. “A lot of football success is in the mind. You must believe that you are the best and then make sure that you are.”
50. “Some people think football (soccer) is a matter of life and death. I assure you, it’s much more serious than that.“ – Football coaching quotes
51. “A football team is like a piano. You need eight men to carry it and three who can play the damn thing.”
52. “Football is a simple game based on the giving and taking of passes, of controlling the ball, and of making yourself available to receive a pass. It is terribly simple.”
Brian Clough Quotes
53. “Saturday comes again, welcome or not, it comes again like it always does, welcome or not, wanted or not, another judgment day – The chance to be saved, the chance to be damned.”
54. “If I had a disagreement with a player, we would sit down for 20 minutes, talk about it, and then decide I was right.”
55. “We had a good team on paper. Unfortunately, the game was played on grass.”
56. “They say Rome wasn’t built in a day, but I wasn’t on that particular job.”
57. “We used to go to the pictures every Saturday night but we had to leave a little bit early and get home and watch Match of the Day – and my wife still complains she missed the last five minutes of every film we saw.”
Related: 45 Interesting Mohamed Salah quotes and sayings about football and success
Jose Mourinho Quotes
58. “You have to work hard and well. There are a lot of people who work hard but not well.”
59. “I hate to speak about individuals. Players don’t win you trophies, teams win trophies. Squads win trophies.”
60. “Fear is not a word in my football dictionary.“
70. “The only thing that we cannot control is our supporters.”
71. “I know all about the ups and downs of football, I know that one day I will be sacked.“
72. “Football is a game about feelings and intelligence.“
73. “Look, we’re not entertaining? I don’t care, we win.“
74. “You can have the top stars to bring the attention, you can have the best stadium, you can have the best facilities, you can have the most beautiful project in terms of marketing and all this kind of thing. But if you don’t win, all the work these people are doing is forgotten.“ – Football coaching quotes
75. “I won’t say we have to win, I won’t put that pressure. But we can’t lose.“
76. “I would rather play with 10 men than wait for a player who is late for the bus.”
Related: 62 Inspirational Olivier Giroud quotes about life and football
Gary Curneen Quotes
77. “First basic step to a successful training program: Every day, attempt to do more of what really matters and less of what doesn’t.”
78. “Difference between a hobby and a passion: Is a player willing to do extra work in addition to team practices? Becoming the single biggest separator today.”
79. “When you focus on what you can’t control you get excuses. When you focus on what you can control you get results.”
80. “If your best player is also your hardest worker, your team has a real chance to be successful.”
81. “Little things generally drive the big things. Over time a player’s diet, company they keep, the time they dedicate to learning/improving become much more important than their talent levels.”
Jurgen Klopp Quotes
82. “My father gave me some advice when I was very young – whatever someone tells you in the future, don’t forget Pele is the best.”
83. “You cannot win without tactical things but the emotion makes the difference.”
84. “I have only one understanding of development and of making success, and that’s by going step by step.”
85. “It needs time. Nobody wants to hear it, but that’s the truth: if you want to have success in the future, you have to be ready to work now.” – Football coaching quotes
86. “If you watch me during the game, I celebrate when we press the ball and it goes out.”
87. “When you play sports like tennis, you’re alone, and that’s a good school for life, but it’s also a good school for life to bring your best and make those around you better too – helping others in difficult moments.” – Football coaching quotes
88. “You can celebrate big wins together, go through big defeats together, but between these things you have to play football people want to talk about.”
89. “I told my players during the break: Since we’re here anyway, we might actually play a bit of football.”
90. “We want to attack the opponent non-stop when we have the ball, when we lose it, and when the opposition has it. Put another way, defending is our first offensive action.”
Antonio Conte Coaching Quotes
91. “I prefer to be a great team not only on paper, but also on the pitch. The pitch is the truth. The pitch speaks.”
92. “My talent as a footballer was medium. But I had heart, a will to win, to work to overcome my limitations.”
93. “When you lose, you learn a lot about yourself. That experience is important.”
94. “I must make the best decision for the club, not for a single player.”
95. “When the technique doesn’t arrive at the best level, arrive with your heart, with head, with enthusiasm, with passion, with work.”
96. “I adapt my idea of football to my players, not adapt my players in my idea of football. It’s important because there are other players that must play. The players are the most important thing in football. I adapt my idea within my players.”
97. “In my team, I don’t want selfish players. I prefer to lose a game than have selfish players. I don’t want that in my club. Never.”
98. “Our target is to win, not to try to make all the players happy.”
Related: 10 Interesting Bernardo Silva quotes and sayings about football
Pep Guardiola Quotes
99. “If you train badly, you play badly. If you work like a beast in training, you play the same way.”
100. “I will forgive if the players cannot get it right, but not if they do not try hard.”
101. “That’s the beauty of sport. Sometimes you laugh, sometimes you cry.”
102. “We always try to win until the very end. If we don’t, we congratulate the opponent. That’s what sports is about.” – Football coaching quotes
103. “I am not dealing with footballers, I am dealing with people. They have fears and worry about failing and making fools of themselves in front of 80,000 people. I have to make them see that without each other they are nothing.”
104. “I sit down and watch videos. I take notes. That’s when that inspiration comes – the moment that makes sense of my profession. The instant I know, for sure, that I’ve got it. I know how to win. It’s the moment that my job becomes truly meaningful.”
105. “The timing needed to go past someone, that instant in which you catch out your opponent when you go past him and a new scenario opens up before you. Dribbling is, at heart, a trick, a con. It does not speed. It’s not physique. It’s an art.”
Related: 44 Great Kylian Mbappe quotes about soccer and life
Zinedine Zidane Quotes
106. “I have a need to play intensely every day, to fight every match hard.”
107. “I once cried because I had no shoes to play soccer, but one day, I met a man who had no feet.”
108. “The door can never be closed for good to any player.”
109. “When your own fans whistle and jeer, then you have a big problem.” – Football coaching quotes
110. “Everything I have achieved in football is due to playing football in the streets with my friends.”
111. “We must not let ourselves get driven off course, no matter what happens we must stick to our natural game.”
Zdeněk Zeman Football Coaching Quotes
112. “There are many coaches today who only manage, without trying to improve their players. It is the players who make the coach.”
113. “I expect every player to give the best he can. If we don’t win, no drama, it is enough for me that the kids have given their best.”
114. “It doesn’t matter how long you run, but where and why you run.”
115. “There is nothing dishonourable in coming last, if you do so with dignity.
116. “People go to the stadium because they want to see a spectacle, but there are games where you fall asleep. With my teams, that never happens.”
117. “This sport is hugely popular not because of big businesses or pharmacies but because in every corner of the world there is a child having fun with a football.”
118. “Sometimes the losers have taught more than the winners. I like to think I’ve given something more and something different to football.”
Diego Simeone Quotes
119. “I don’t believe much in luck. I believe more in work, in convincing, in stubbornness, and in capacity.”
120. “We are nothing more or less than what we choose to reveal.”
121. “The war is won by the man who best uses his soldiers.”
“Effort is non-negotiable.”
122. “As a player it is easy. You only think of yourself. The coach has to think of everything.”
123. “We aspire to be an annoying team.”
124. “We play every game as if it were our last.” – Football coaching quotes
125. “Games aren’t won by those who play well, but by those who play safe.”
126. “Effort is the magic that makes success.”
127. “I enjoy winning titles, but that is the past, we must look forward.”
128. “My parents raised me to play football like a soldier.”
129. “I believe in working individually with players. If I see improvement, that is the most important title.”
130. “I believe in order first of all and above all. Order is a way of life.”
Related: 32 Powerful quotes from Phil Foden
Brendan Rogers Quotes
131. “I’ve always said that you can live without water for many days, but you can’t live for a second without hope.”
132. “That ability to press immediately, within five or six seconds to get the ball, is important.”
133. “The best players want to play in the best competition.”
134. “I started coaching for one reason. To make a difference for people, not just as footballers, but as human beings.”
135. “My biggest mentor is myself, because I’ve had to study, so that’s been my biggest influence.”
136. “Statistics and numbers are no good unless you have good people to analyse and then interpret their meaning and importance.”
137. “I’d rather lose a game trying to win it, than lose it trying not to get beat.”
Summary of Football Coaching Quotes
There you have it; inspirational and motivational words of courage and determination from top soccer managers of all times.
So, tell us, which of these football coaching quotes interests you the most? Let’s have your comments in the box provided blow. Also, don’t forget to like and share this post.
Even More Topics:
