Sporting Hero Quotes

What's so amazing in today's society is people look up to football players. And as a football player, you have a platform. And it's so much more important than any touchdown or trophy or anything you could win with football. Its taking that platform and be able to influence people.

It's everyone's dream to play for their country.

Footballers have a great opportunity to be a good example because the kids want to listen to you and be like you in many ways.

When people see me as Gavaskar on screen, I want them to feel that they are looking at the person that they have known and when I play on screen, it should remind them of how he played.

I think we always look up to legends and people who not only win but give us a larger than life role model... I think Michael Jordan is this, someone who became bigger than his sport.

When you win the World Cup, you start to become a legend - for the people around the world, you are different.

It isn't easy being a celebrity cricketer in India.

One of the best things if you are a football player is to see the faces of the kids, when they see you and are dreaming of being like you one day. That's a big responsibility, to be a good image for those kids. A football player is more than just a football player.

In India, kids need someone to look up to. They've got it in cricket: they have Tendulkar and others.

When Michael Jordan quit, I suddenly found myself without a sports hero.

My sporting hero was Drazen Petrovic, the NBA basketball player, who was killed in a car accident in 1993. He was a good friend, an unbelievable player, and I dedicated my Wimbledon win to him.

When I was a kid, if someone had asked who I'd meet if it could be anyone in the world, it would've been Liam Brady.

Apart from being celebrities, there's a huge amount of respect associated with being cricketers and a certain amount of reverence and honour associated with representing India. In people's eyes, apart from other celebrities in India, I think for sportsmen in India there's a certain amount of regard.

I played with Baggio when I was young. I grew up with his myth, and to actually play with him was like being in a dream. I tried to hang out with him, to study how he played and to learn from him.

Paul Gascoigne was one who I watched as a young boy. He was a hero to all of us really. Chris Waddle was one for me too, just because of where I grew up. Where I'm from, he was somebody who was representing England and playing in the Premier League, and as a young boy I always wanted to do both.

Yannick, for me, is an example, an example for all the French players. We all want to taste ourselves what he was able to taste first.

To be looked up to as one of the Americans that's supposed to carry the torch, go to the major championships and get medals, that's a huge honour.

You dream as a player of having fans chanting your name.

It was a dream come true to meet GR Viswanath sir, who is a legend in the game.

As a kid, we all have dreamt that we wanted to play with Sachinpaaji, and that dream has come true.

Del Potro is one of these miracle men he can come up with these matches where you least expect it and he pulls something out of the bag. I have no idea what it is but he becomes a magician.

I would want to change my name to Sachin Tendulkar if I could do it. He has tons of records; I am not even close to him. He is called as the 'God,' and who would not want to be a God in this mortal world?

Julio Cesar Chavez is the most important sporting figure we have ever had.

I looked up to cricket players such as Imran Khan.

I have loved cricket my whole life, from playing in the garden as a child, and will never underestimate how special it is to pull on an England shirt.