Shaun Wright-Phillips Quotes

It's very difficult in England because the season is very long and hard compared to other places. There's not a lot of recovery time at all, not even a break at Christmas. You just have to do your best and get on with it.

When you're hurting after a match, the last thing you want to do is get in a car or on a plane to get to the next city.

Being a professional cricketer, you have to adapt to the conditions quickly. It takes time to get rhythm when you are constantly traveling from one country to another.

I felt, when I was 20, I wasn't quite ready for the physical contact of 82 games. Mentally, it was tough. I forgot what city we were in most of the time. I can't even imagine going through it at 18 or 19.

It's not easy to play 162 games and be focused the whole time. It takes a lot out of you.

Toward the end of the Olympics, you get physically tired and drained. And no matter how much rest you have, your body is tired.

In a cricket career, your life is in some ways controlled for you. You have no control over schedules, you have no control about where you want to play, you don't have control over that as a cricketer.

Touring is hard on the body.

Even if you see a great performance, it's not always great getting there. There are injuries... Intrinsically or unconsciously, people understand that - people see those performances, and they know there are stories behind that.

When you're in a different place every day, there's this kind of madness that sets in.

I am of the opinion that the burden of playing games is much too high, especially for international players that also play domestically with their clubs.

The Premier League is what it is. Some people will see the intensity and quality as a great advantage for your players: it will make them better. Some will see it as a disadvantage because the players play at such a high level and such intensity, it's difficult for them to drum that up, that intensity, with a very short space of rest time.

To try to be a professional athlete and work out when you're not sleeping right, you're traveling day to day, not to mention the bumps and bruises in the ring, and you're trying to eat right - it's a very, very challenging job.

I found it difficult when I first started to travel around the world as a footballer. Hotels go from places you are excited to stay in to places you get tired of pretty quickly.

You play 162 days, and you play every day, or you try to play every day, and it's going to take a toll on your body. But that's what we're out here for. We're out here to play.

Under the lights, there's a lot of pressure, my first big show. The mental pressure drained me out a bit. I was fit and healthy, but I was thinking, 'Why am I tired?' There are so many things that go on in there.

I think playing international football burns players out, but I was in and out of the England squad so never felt that.

The body, enervated by the excesses of the preceding day, weighs down and prostates the mind also.

It is horrible, yet fascinating, this struggle between a set purpose and an utterly exhausted frame.

There are certain times you want to be here and there are certain times you want to just go. And when you go, it's usually so exhausting you have to check into a hospital when you come home!

I think I may drop dead on the stage someday. I hate to think of it. But it's getting tough on me, the travel. The show, I somehow manage to rise up to it, you know. But I have no desire to retire.

You need good fitness from the players and the organisational structure has to be there from early on in pre-season because the games come so quickly that you don't have much time on the grass with the players to shuffle the pack tactically.

No doubt about it. For every player. Thursday nights are very tough for us because it is a short turnaround.

It is one thing being scrutinised for playing a bad shot as a batsman or bowling a bad spell as a bowler, but the captaincy adds an extra dimension. The criticism is slightly harder to take.

Whether it's one play in the NFL or 1,000 plays in the NFL, your pads will come off eventually.