"The important thing is the path you travel and the people who accompany you, not the destination that it takes you. Because that with work and effort comes alone and I think I can say, without hesitation, that it has been the path and the dream destination."
Iker Casillas
"[The 1999 Women's World Cup celebration] changed my life, it improved my life, made my life flip upside down with how much it's really impacted women's football. It was incredible the ground swell of support for every game, not just ours. The telling number was, I remember post-99 I went to a small town in South Dakota, which was not a hotbed for soccer at the time, they had 100 girls playing, which even in the eyes of the people there they thought was incredible. One month after the 1999 win, 10,000 girls signed up. I think that's a small microcosm of what's happening all over the world. When something big like [the 1999 Women's World Cup] happens and there's people who look like you and represent you, you feel like you can take on anything and be brave enough to push other people's belief in what you can do, and sometimes your own."
Brandi Chastain [Sky Sports]
"They [Premier League, FIFA Club World Cup and UEFA Super Cup winners’ medals] are hanging up above my bed. I always have a look at them before I go to sleep."
Harvey Elliott [The Athletic]
"Once we get back training together we will go from strength to strength. I think we will shock the world when we play in the next tournament."
Rachel Daly [BBC Sport]
"I really love combat sports, I really like to train. After football, why not train with you for six months and if you think I'm ready for a fight then that won't be a problem for me."
Karim Benzema [MMA's Fouad Ezbiri via YouTube]
"Without Cristiano, Madrid know what they have lost, but maybe not what they could have won if he was still there. I think maybe they thought they would get another player like Ronaldo but players like him only come along once every 200 years."
Emmanuel Adebayor [AS]
"When it’s over I will look back and think, ‘That was a crazy journey, people dream about doing this’. But my journey’s not over and now I am focussing on winning more trophies."
Shanice van de Sanden [FIFA.com]
“For me, he [Sergio Ramos] is the best defender in the world. His body is unbelievable, he is a machine. When I was watching a game the other day, I thought, ‘how old is he? 34?’ I believe he can still be playing for another six years, I’ve so much respect for him.”
Rafael van der Vaart [Stats Perform News]
"When I started working with Brazil, Tite [the coach] sent me to watch Firmino at Burnley and he was incredible. You see him play [on TV] and think: ‘Yeah, he’s very good.’ But at the ground? Wow. He does so much. I left there enamoured. The ball’s on the other side and you see him move, the generosity with which he links teammates, how he never lost the ball – that’s incredibly hard in the Premier League. If you say ‘I want 40 goals’, maybe he’s not that striker but if you want someone complete, who generates spaces, goes outside, inside, buah! Brilliant."
Sylvinho [The Guardian]
"When I was a kid, they were my heroes. I often tell him [Zinedine Zidane] that he doesn't realise what he meant to me. I tell him, 'You took a World Cup off us at France '98, but you were still my idol.' I couldn't grasp then that the player I was watching as a kid was even real. You would see them on television and they played so well, they were so famous. And even today when I talk to the manager, I get a little bit nervous. He was always my hero with Roberto Carlos, Ronaldo, Figo, Raul, Casillas. Now we have Zidane as the coach and we see the others here at Valdebebas."
Casemiro [The Guardian]