Soccer Popularity Quotes

But I think it's also hard to get into soccer here. I think purely on a time level on television as well because of the ad breaks. It's something to do with that as well. You can't show a complete soccer match here. Which I kind of find a bit of an odd thing.

Television is making sports universal; for the same reason, big-time soccer is growing more popular in the United States.

Facebook revealed that Ebola was the most popular Facebook topic in the U.S. this year, with the World Cup coming in sixth. So welcome to America, where even Ebola is more popular than soccer.

I played in Europe and it was a great experience, not just because of my team-mates and the coaches we had, but from the fans and the city itself - I played in Gothenburg and I played in Lyon and soccer was everywhere.

I think I'm being conservative when I say there are more people playing soccer in the United States than in 90% of the world's other countries, probably 95%.

After the '96 Olympics, we all started believing that this is bigger than we thought, and we were willing to do the work. We knew that it was up to us, the players, to make soccer successful.

I never knew that Americans would take up soccer, and it's a gender-free sport in high school there.

Everyone's second team in Italy is Leicester. In Thailand, the first team is Leicester. I've received letters from Paraguay, Uruguay, Brazil - everywhere 'Leicester, Leicester, what a legend.'

Since the World Cup in 2015, we've all experienced an increase in the interest in women's football, which has led to more and more fans supporting the team.

Quite frankly, I can't get enough of soccer. I tell my jingoistic friends in the United States there's a reason why it is the world's No. 1 sport. The rest of the planet can't be wrong.

Soccer is popular because stupidity is popular.

Contrary to popular belief, I don't spend a whole lot of time following soccer. But as I have traveled around the world to better understand global development and health, I've learned that soccer is truly universal. No matter where I go, that's what kids are playing. That's what people are talking about.

It wasn't until 1999 when my idols Mia Hamm and Kristine Lilly took home the women's World Cup trophy at the Rose Bowl in front of 40 million TV viewers that I remember thinking how rare it was to see women play sports on TV.

I am not obsessed about making an impression on the Premier League.

I've never had a problem finding a team, a league, or a pickup game. Actually, I'm not sure I want soccer to get bigger. We have so many teams in San Francisco that there aren't enough fields.

I think what we really want to do is to create a real soccer nation. We want to have kids really wanting to play the sport.

I get asked this a lot: Why has soccer not succeeded? My answer is, soccer has succeeded. It is already the fastest growing youth participation sport in the U.S. It has already succeeded at the youth level, no question.

Like many a Yank before me, I have tried to explain to European friends that Americans actually know soccer quite well, that many of us played it in school and college, but that, well, we just don't find it quite as exciting as, say, what we call football.

I think a lot of people thought women's soccer had arrived and it was here to stay and it was going to be huge, but that wasn't realistic. It has progressed slowly.

I've never met anybody who says they don't like the World Cup. If you're a soccer fan or not, everybody loves watching it, and I think it could be the same for other sports.

If you want to know whether soccer is big in America, pick a weekend, go to any park in the land, and pay attention. We're there. We've always been.

I never felt the same passion for the game in the States and there were a lot of headaches, a lot of obstacles to overcome - it didn't just run itself for the love of the game because soccer is not the No. 1 sport as it is in Europe.

In North America, many fans know Cristiano Ronaldo's smirk and can recognize Didier Drogba in a commercial. Maybe they know too much for the good of M.L.S.

It's no secret that I think that MLS is a top five, top six league in the world but they're not the top league.

Kids in Africa start kicking a ball when they are six or seven years old, if not younger. It's like baseball, basketball and football in America. If you're talented, people will find you. That's what happened with soccer. The number of academies has grown rapidly, and people are really into it.