Gary Lineker

Footballer

1960-11-30

Quotes by Gary Lineker

• The whole kiss-and-tell thing is a negative approach that often happens in a World Cup. We will see negative stories about the players and it can affect their confidence and the overall performance of the national team on the pitch, let alone the bid to actually stage the competition.

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• People are possibly not spelling 'Leicester' correctly everywhere round the globe, but they are at least saying it correctly now.

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• My fiancee's brother-in-law was recently paralysed in an accident and it really brought home the fact that thousands of young people live with spinal injuries. It's an issue I wish had more coverage.

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• The best, most successful managers in the modern era are those who can keep a player happy even if he is not in the team. Given the size of the squads and the use of rotation nowadays, that's tougher than it's ever been.

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• I think the important thing we have to remember about football in this country is that it is very vibrant, and it's very good to watch, not only in the flesh but also on TV, because our stadiums are full.

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• It's true: a lot of sportspeople really struggle to find something to do when they finish. It tips them into all sorts of strange things. With ex-footballers, it's really scary. I think 70% of them get divorced within five years. It's hard. You go from being really famous to not that famous. Your salary drops through the floor.

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• This is ludicrous. Seven- and eight-year-olds valiantly trying to cover the same acreage as those grown-up chaps in the Premier League is absurd. To add to the lunacy, a little goalkeeper, barely out of nappies, has to stand between posts that are eight strides apart - adult strides - and under a crossbar more than twice his height.

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• When I see old photos of me on the beach I don't look too bad... but it's hard trying to breathe in for such a long time when I spot the photographers!

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• If somebody in the crowd spits at you, you've got to swallow it.

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• Football's the big cheese, if you like. It's easy to have a swipe. There's a lot of footballers, and when they fall foul, they become big news.

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• I can't understand why someone wouldn't have a degree of sympathy for people that had to flee their country, travel to try and find their home somewhere, and nobody wants them. How could you not be a little bit sympathetic?

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• I've known Mark Hughes for half a lifetime. We joined Barcelona in the same summer of 1986, played together under Terry Venables and Luis Aragones, and have kept in touch ever since.

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• I watched Leicester City lose in the 1969 FA Cup final with my dad and granddad when I was eight and cried all the way home. I have seen them get promoted and relegated. I played for them for eight years. I even got a group of like-minded fans and friends to stump up a few quid to salvage the club when they went into liquidation.

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• Football is a simple game. Twenty-two men chase a ball for 90 minutes and at the end, the Germans always win.

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• The World Cup is every four years, so it's going to be a perennial problem.

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• People have no idea how hard football is, absolutely no idea. It's all about pace. You can say, 'Yeah, you've got speed of thought' - but you've got to have a little bit of a zip.

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