Zaza Pachulia Quotes

Sometimes you get into fights if a teammate is getting taken advantage of, sometimes just from competing and you feel someone takes a cheap shot. It's just the intensity. It's an intense game, sometimes you just get too fired up and fights happen.

I do not think that winning is the most important thing. I think winning is the only thing.

You don't have to try to hurt people and be angry to be an athlete.

A lot of times, you had to beat the bullies at their own game. But the difficulty is not becoming the bully yourself.

I'm not an aggressive person, but obviously on the sporting field I'll do whatever it takes.

I'm a quiet guy, but on the pitch, it's different. You have to do everything you can to win and help your teammates.

I don't have any concerns fighting a teammate. It's a sport. To me, it doesn't really mean anything.

You can promote fights - of course, you have to - you can say 'I'll beat you' or whatever, but you cannot put family, religion, anything like that in the mix. You need to separate things. That is a line a lot of fighters cross.

I don't ever go into a fight wanting to hurt someone. I just want to show them that I am better than them, and if they get hurt, it's part of the sport.

When I'm aggressive, all the other guys are aggressive, and somehow that's how we win games.

There is no such thing as friends on the field.

I always want my players to show class, knock'em down, pat on the back, and run back to the huddle.

If a player is trying to intimidate a skilled player on your team, what do we want? We want our skilled players playing, so we shouldn't be doing that.

There are more important things in life than winning or losing a game.

My own little rule was two for one. If one of my teammates got knocked down, then I knocked down two on the other team.

Every soccer player can be on the edge, at the limit, be the bad guy. We have to get used to it. Sometimes I am one of those.

It's one thing to say, 'I don't like what you said to me and I find it rude and offensive,' but the moment you threaten violence in return, you've taken it to another level, where you lose whatever credibility you had.

I don't like to kick people when they're down. I like to kick people when they're up.

Soccer isn't very social. Plus, if you don't like someone on the other team, you can do something about it.

When I began playing the game, baseball was about as gentlemanly as a kick in the crotch.

When it's your will versus another person's will, the worst thing you can do is smile in their face when you're competing. That's what I tell our guys. Go have fun.

Sometimes I had bad behaviour with managers that I loved at Sampdoria, like Vujadin Boskov and Sven-Goran Eriksson. I understand that this can happen during the game or when you are substituted.

Toughness isn't that you've got to fight with the guy after the play or punch him because he punched you. That's not tough. That's dumb.

When I go into the ring, I don't hate opponents, and I certainly don't want to hurt them.

I'm not going to take it easy on the guy when he catches the football and not try and hit him because he's a friend of mine. It doesn't happen.