Franz Beckenbauer Quotes

In my day, the players used to work their socks off. It's all changed now, obviously.

It's hard for me to get to grips with how much players have changed since I retired. There are too many annoying habits; the kids are getting rich earlier and earlier, which brings a weird sense of entitlement.

I wonder whether my bleak-o-meter is set differently from other people's.

I think marriage and athletes is a bad combination.

It's good to overexpose yourself with work. But don't expose yourself too much with the press.

The day of parochialism in sports is over. The world is too small for what people like to call 'the good old days.' Fans want the best, wherever they come from.

That's a part that's always a challenge for athletes: trying to keep the passion alive while knowing it's still your job. There's no question that at some point, probably sooner rather than later, I'll be pretty burned out. And when that time comes, then I'll take a step back and take a look at it and see if I want to keep going.

I think I understand why baseball players today are a little standoffish, because the world has changed. You don't know who's trying to take advantage of you, what people really want.

Players now have a groin injury for months and months, and I often think they don't really give a toss whether they're playing or not because they're getting paid anyway.

There's a lot of players that go to a city, pick up a check, go to practice, and just worry about what's happening in their households, and you can't blame them.

Pilates has been around a long time but maybe was taboo in this sport. I think it's only a matter of time before you see a reformer in every big league clubhouse.

Part and parcel of being an international sportsman is dealing with fair or unfair criticism and also when you are on the back pages when you are performing.

Everyone's got issues. There's a stigma in football that you earn a certain amount of money, how dare you have issues.

I don't know where sports in general will go. But when I grew up, you just played the sport. Parents just wanted to make sure that you were happy doing something.

I was called up for Spain against France, my international debut, and it was said that I had gastroenteritis when I had an anxiety attack. But no one wants to talk about that. Football's not interested.

In my days, players were only thinking about publicity during holiday and on rest days.

In the modern era, with the rewards the top players have during their career and the risks involved moving into management, more will look at it and say they don't need it.

For as much as I tend to run my mouth sometimes, I would have definitely stacked up better in the 1970s or the 1980s when there wasn't as much media or there wasn't as much publicity and sponsorship around the sport that you had to be PC for.

There is an expectation that if you do sport, any sport, you should never have a life outside that. People expect you to just train, play, train. But that's not me.

People like to talk a lot about me, about how I have anxiety or social disorders. I'll admit to anxiety, but it has nothing to do with media or being in front of a camera or being around people. It has to do with dealing with the sparring that I'm going to have or the workouts that I'm going to have from day to day.

The nine-to-five is one of the greatest atrocities sprung upon mankind. You give your life to a function that doesn't interest you. This situation so repelled me that I was driven to drink, starvation, and mad females, simply as an alternative.

I seem to be having tremendous difficulty with my life-style

One of the saddest things is that the only thing that a man can do for eight hours a day, day after day, is work. You can't eat...nor make love for eight hours...

The simple idea that everyone needs a reasonable amount of challenging work in his or her life, and also a personal life, complete with noncompetitive leisure, has never really taken hold.

No matter what job you have, even when it's one you love, it's important to take some time away, both mentally and physically, to regroup, refresh and regain good, positive energy.