Truth Bombs, Thongs and Garlic Bread: The 81 Best Soccer Quotes of 2025
It can, on occasion, appear as though the main protagonists of the world’s most popular sport would be best off copying Victorian children: be seen and not heard.
Countless players, managers and pundits have talked themselves into sticky situations down the years. 2025, an age with more recording devices and eager listeners than ever before, proved no different.
Yet, for all the muddled metaphors, bitter jabs and tantrums befitting a child of any era, there were one or two wise words scattered across the year in soccer.
Sass
In a job where managers are subjected to the world’s microphones every three days for an ever-widening window of time, it’s a testament to their collectively cool temperaments that there aren’t more blunt outbursts. Nevertheless, the mask does slip on occasion.
I’m confused because I heard that we’re terrible at football and what I see is that Real Madrid are top.
- Carlo Ancelotti (Jan. 19)
Real Madrid would ultimately end the 2024–25 season without victory in La Liga or the Champions League, while Carlo Ancelotti lost his job. Yet, the Italian didn’t go before he was defended by Espanyol’s Manolo González.
I don’t go to the surgeon and tell him how to operate on me because I haven’t got a f------ clue, but saying ridiculous things comes free.
- Manolo González (Feb. 1)
González wasn’t always so good at defending himself. During a five-game losing streak at the end of 2024–25, he lamented:
One day you’re John Travolta, the next you’re Manolo González.
- Manolo González (May 3)
José Mourinho always reserves top billing for himself. “You published fake news about me this week,” the Benfica manager told a Portuguese reporter. “As the main character of the article, I’m telling you it’s fake.”
You’re grounded, I won’t answer. Maybe next week.
- José Mourinho (Dec. 24)
It isn’t only journalists who can get under the skin of managers. As Manchester United’s minority co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe revealed, Ruben Amorim will let his ruthless paymaster know when his advice is unwanted.
I really, really like Ruben. He’s a very thoughtful guy. Every time I go to the training ground, I speak to Ruben. I sit down and have a cup of coffee with him and tell him where it’s going wrong, and he tells me to f--- off. I like him.
- Sir Jim Ratcliffe (March 10)
Amorim has nothing on Pep Guardiola when it comes to his sarcastic edicts, which the Manchester City boss is very comfortable airing in public.
We are s---.
- Pep Guardiola (Sept. 23)
During a particularly impassioned rant about City’s supposedly more direct style, Guardiola added:
I changed absolutely everything in three days. I must be a really, really good manager.
- Pep Guardiola (Sept. 23)
The former Tottenham Hotspur boss Ange Postecoglou was a really, really good manager for a quote. Whether all Spurs fans feel the same about his tactical acumen is less certain, although everyone in N17 will have enjoyed his response to Arsène Wenger’s claim that the Europa League winner should not be guaranteed Champions League qualification.
It’s a debate that’s been raging for years...at least the last eight days.
- Ange Postecoglou (May 7)
As Postecoglou fiendishly added: “Spurs does crazy things to people.”
Public opinion also does crazy things to players.
Many people think I don’t know how to play football. They don’t have a f------ clue.
- Gavi (April 9)
Gavi’s Barcelona teammate Robert Lewandowski, who turned 37 in 2025, also had reason to huff.
In the Premier League, they pay a lot. You see the players they are buying for big prices when players don’t even have one good season. You are young, you score 10 goals in six months and some club will pay 60 or 70 million. Before, you had to achieve something.
- Robert Lewandowski (Sept. 13)
Real Madrid’s Kylian Mbappé is far too savvy to let any insolence seep out in public. Yet, after being awarded €60 million ($70.4 million) in unpaid wages from his time at Paris Saint-Germain, his legal team of Delphine Verheyden and Frédérique Cassereau couldn’t resist a parting shot.
I hope that PSG will be able to comply voluntarily, without having to go through a bailiff; that would be gracious.
- Mbappé’s lawyers (Dec. 16)
You ask stupid questions, you will get a stupid answer back.
- Erling Haaland (July 31)
Perhaps Unai Emery had Erling Haaland’s warning in mind when he provided the same response to every prematch question he faced on the eve of the summer transfer window: “Emi Martínez not in the squad at all tonight, why is that?” he was asked. “Where is Emi Martínez though? Will he be your future goalkeeper?”
Marco Bizot.
- Unai Emery (Aug. 31)
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Martin O’Neill proved the doubters wrong during his eight-game stretch as Celtic boss in 2025—including those in his own home:
My two daughters were all for going for it, but my wife said I’d probably mess it up. I haven’t messed it up so far.
- Martin O’Neill (Nov. 27)
O’Neill’s predicted demise wasn’t the most grievous mistake of the year.
Arda Kardzhali held a minute’s silence ahead of a Bulgarian top-flight clash against Levski Sofia in March to commemorate the life of their legendary former striker, Petko Ganchev. As Ganchev promptly pointed out, that life was still ongoing.
Being buried alive is quite stressful, really.
- Petko Ganchev (March 16)
“I was 10 minutes late [for kick-off] because I had a personal job,” he recalled. “While driving home, my phone started ringing a lot. I parked in front of our house, entered the yard and my wife greets me crying, shouting: ‘Petko, Petko, they announced on TV that you have died!’”
Player Fury
2025 was the year that player power rose to unprecedented levels of prominence. Chloe Kelly turned the spotlight on Manchester City in the final hours of the January transfer window, ultimately forcing through a late loan move to Arsenal, where she would win the Champions League and regain her England spot before lifting the 2025 European Championship title.
They’ve called reporters to assassinate my character and tried to plant negative stories about me in the football media.
- Chloe Kelly (Jan. 31)
Every outburst wasn’t so successful.
Sadly I feel I have no choice but to speak out for what I believe is right and I feel that enough is enough.
- Ademola Lookman (Aug. 3)
Ademola Lookman didn’t leave Atalanta.
Alexander Isak, however, did force through his move away from Newcastle, proving that posting on social media late in the night can have some happy outcomes. If that’s what you’d call his Liverpool career so far.
When promises are broken and trust is lost, the relationship can’t continue.
- Alexander Isak (Aug. 19)
Mohamed Salah took a leaf out of Isak’s playbook in December with an extraordinary takedown of Liverpool, Arne Slot and Harry Kane oddly enough.
It seems like the club has thrown me under the bus.
- Mohamed Salah (Dec. 6)
Bruno Fernandes soon followed suit.
The club wanted me to go, I have that in my head. I said that to the directors, but I think they did not have the courage to make this decision.
- Bruno Fernandes (Dec. 16)
“In England,” the experienced Manchester United captain added, “when a player starts to approach 30, they start to think they need to remodel. It’s like the furniture.”
Jules Kounde is only 27 but felt compelled to defend players of all ages given the ever expanding footballing calendar.
You have to understand that we are not machines.
- Jules Kounde (March 27)
Not all player gripes were so serious, however.
I don’t let my wife win anything… We play Uno. I hate to lose. It’s just in me.
- Dominik Szoboszlai (May 24)
Analogies & Tangents
Football is prone to hyperbole. This is, after all, “much more serious” than life and death. In the quest to convey the depth of this pursuit, plenty of silly sentiments have been raised.
I thought Trump would solve the world’s problems in Alaska. I saw Putin very serious and playing his part. We’ll have to keep waiting to see if these two figures can take the necessary steps to restore calm to Ukraine. Speaking of tranquility, look no further than Mallorca this Saturday.
- Josep Maria Minguella (Aug. 18)
Some figures have a stronger grasp of how to get an idea across using some colourful imagery.
Every time I’ve seen the light at the end of the tunnel, it’s usually been an oncoming train.
- Ange Postecoglou (Jan. 31)
Statistics are like thongs: they reveal a lot, but they hide what’s most important.
- Paco Jémez (March 7)
But not everyone.
Flick is a Gladiator, he looks just like Russell Crowe.
- Joan Laporta (Oct. 13)
Frenkie de Jong offered a more balanced view of Barcelona’s manager with the same underlying sentiment: “Flick does have character. He has very clear ideas, he’s approachable, and he’s kind. But then you have to do what you have to do. And if you don’t, you don’t play.”
Arsenal’s Mikel Arteta is a little more pliable—especially when it comes to the purse strings.
The budget is like when you have your wedding: you plan your wedding with your wife and you give her a budget and it’s never less, it’s always more.
- Mikel Arteta (May 16)
Some expressions can get lost in translation. Guardiola’s advice to his Real Madrid counterpart Xabi Alonso before their Champions League clash this season played upon a Catalan saying:
That he pee with his own one. And since he won’t be peeing cologne, he’ll be O.K.
- Pep Guardiola (Dec. 9)
The City boss knew exactly what he was doing. “You like that headline, right?” he added.
Sean Dyche’s attempts to manipulate the media are just as varied.
Skinny jeans, flared jeans, skinny jeans, flared jeans, my daughter hammers me for whatever jeans I wear.
- Sean Dyche (Oct. 22)
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Arteta is known to fall down rabbit holes of his own.
That’s an opportunity tomorrow at 7:30 p.m., everybody, 7:30 p.m. kick-off to be at the Emirates, bouncing and putting energy to win the game. That’s the opportunity that we have tomorrow, 7:30 p.m.
- Mikel Arteta (Dec. 3)
A week later after that early evening victory over Brentford, Arsenal started flat against Wolverhampton Wanderers in the later 8 p.m. slot. Arteta mused: “I don’t know, before Brentford I called everybody at 7:30 p.m. and today was a late kick-off, I forgot to say that.”
Marc Guéhi forgot to shake hands with his Crystal Palace manager Oliver Glasner at the height of transfer speculation surrounding his future last summer. Many queried the snub, but not Roy Keane.
“A player has just had a tough match, he’s physically exhausted, and the manager is just trying to go and have a little chit-chat,” the sharp-tongued pundit argued. “What happened to years ago when the manager would shake the other manager’s hand and walk down the tunnel? It’s the new thing.”
It’s the new garlic bread.
- Roy Keane (Aug. 17)
Igor Tudor didn’t stand for any disrespect at Juventus.
I spoke to Lilian Thuram yesterday on the phone. He told me: ‘If my son Khéphren does anything wrong, you can slap him.’
- Igor Tudor (March 27)
Brutal Honesty
All the media training in the world can’t save the sport’s protagonists from breaking character on occasion. Although Mourinho always seems to have an idea of what’s coming out of his mouth.
I’m going to be very naughty but very honest.
- José Mourinho (May 31)
Haaland can be similarly blunt.
Every footballer is waiting the whole year for holidays.
- Erling Haaland (July 31)
Burnley captain Josh Brownhill was perhaps thinking of an exciting summer trip when Championship promotion was confirmed after the Clarets conceded 16 goals in 46 league games:
We’ve bored our way to the Premier League.
- Josh Brownhill (April 21)
The criticism which Scott Parker attracted from even his own players for a mightily successful season with Burnley rams home a sentiment captured by the most prolific winner of promotion in English league football history.
It’s a lonely job, being a manager.
- Neil Warnock (Aug. 1)
Miron Muslić offered some specifics on the genre when he previewed the evening he would spend after masterminding Plymouth Argyle’s FA Cup upset of Liverpool.
I will go home. I will rewatch the game. I will eat some nachos and drink some Fanta. Very boring for me. But the fans should enjoy themselves.
- Miron Muslić (Feb. 9)
The managers of Chelsea men and women take different approaches to the treatment of their players.
My father is 75 years old and for 50 years he’s been a fisherman, working from two o’clock in the morning till 10 o’clock in the morning. This is a hard life—not the way a player works.
- Enzo Maresca (Sept. 19)
Enzo Maresca’s father may be best advised to avoid Sonia Bompastor.
I don’t let my players breathe.
- Sonia Bompastor (April 30)
It seems as though Arnaut Danjuma may have come across the serial-winning Frenchwoman.
There are few coaches who are not crazy.
- Arnaut Danjuma (Dec. 27)
Managers aren’t the only ones that can be a little unhinged.
I’m a bit of a psychopath.
- Wojciech Szczęsny (July 9)
“A few years ago I learned to turn off emotions completely during matches,” Barcelona’s goalkeeper somewhat worryingly declared. “I’m not in everyday life, only in sport. Many athletes are too, that’s why I admire them: Michael Jordan, Roger Federer, Tiger Woods... It’s a psychological profile, we’re all very similar.”
I see myself as a scumbag on the pitch. This character is needed in every team.
- David Raum (Jan. 8)
Scumbags aren’t exclusively required on the pitch.
There are coaches who try things that don’t work and fail, but they say, ‘I died with my idea.’ If you die with your idea, you’re a fool.
- José Mourinho (July 22)
Egos kill success.
- Hansi Flick (Sept. 3)
No one can match Amorim’s levels of unfiltered—unwanted, unrecommended, unwise—levels of honesty.
Sometimes I want to quit, sometimes I want to be here for 20 years ... Sometimes I hate my players, sometimes I love my players.
- Ruben Amorim (Aug. 29)
It would not be Manchester United without suffering a little bit.
- Ruben Amorim (Oct. 25)
It doesn’t stop with the club’s manager. United’s minority co-owner has also proven to be loose lipped, especially when it comes to his opinion of the players.
Some are not good enough and some probably are overpaid.
- Sir Jim Ratcliffe (March 10)
Jibes & Sly Digs
A torrent of tongue-lashing takes place behind the scenes, but some managers can’t help but bring their critiques into the open.
Lookman was not supposed to take that penalty, he is one of the worst penalty takers I’ve ever seen. He has a frankly terrible record even in training, he converts very few of them.
- Gian Piero Gasperini on Ademola Lookman
He can become a good right back for the physicality he has. The thing is not to play in the middle because he’s not clever enough with the composure.
- Pep Guardiola on Matheus Nunes
Unfortunately for him he does a lot of things well but he has been a bit too much at the crime scene.
- Arne Slot on Ibrahima Konaté
There’s no way you’ll go into a race and be given the keys to a Honda Civic and say, ‘I want you to drive it like a Ferrari.’ It’s not going to happen.
- Brendan Rodgers on the Celtic squad
After conceding three goals in the final eight minutes to give up a 1–0 lead at Old Trafford, Southampton’s increasingly beleaguered Croatian manager Ivan Jurić managed to insult his players and the entire peninsula of Italy:
There is a moment you have to be Italian. Some fouls. We are innocent, like kids, playing well and they score. I will show the situation when you do other things. We have to be more evil.
- Ivan Juric (Jan 16)
Clearly Jurić, who has spent more than 20 years playing and managing in Serie A, was familiar with the sentiment preached by the legendary Italian journalist Gianni Brera: “In Italy, we have never heard of fair play.”
It seemed for a time that Amorim had never heard of Marcus Rashford’s standing within Manchester United. After leaving the academy graduate out of the squad yet again, the United boss claimed he had more faith in the club’s then-63-year-old goalkeeper coach Jorge Vital.
You can see on the bench we miss a bit of pace on the bench. But I would put Vital before a player who doesn’t give the maximum every day.
- Ruben Amorim on Marcus Rashford
Amorim’s Mancunian ire was not reserved for Rashford.
We are the worst team maybe in the history of Manchester United.
- Ruben Amorim (Jan. 19)
Unwanted opinions proliferate the game. Bayern Munich executive Karl-Heinz Rummenigge lambasted Newcastle United’s entire transfer strategy after the Magpies paid £69 million ($93m) for Nick Woltemade, who snubbed the Bavarians for Tyneside.
I congratulate Stuttgart, because they found an idiot who paid the money we didn’t want to pay in Munich.
- Karl-Heinz Rummenigge (Sept. 28)
Newcastle took little notice of Rummenigge, and Real Madrid adopted the same indifference to Roy Keane’s view of Trent Alexander-Arnold.
They’re talking about him going to Real Madrid; he’ll be going to Tranmere Rovers at this rate.
- Roy Keane on Trent Alexander-Arnold
Keane also claimed that Haaland’s general standard of play was “almost like a League Two player.” And he remains one of the Premier League’s most sought-after pundits.
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Tim Weah and Christian Pulisic stuck up for players in this ongoing war of words with the sport’s talking heads.
I think those guys are chasing checks and for me I just feel like they’re really evil, honestly, because they’ve been players and they know what it’s like when you’re getting bashed. Those are the same guys that’ll turn around and shake your hand and try to be friendly with you at the end of the day.
- Tim Weah (Aug. 13)
Long-held establishments also came under fire this year.
For example, if the BBC says Frenkie earns 40 million a year, it’s their responsibility to ensure the information they publish is accurate. And when something isn’t true, as was the case here, I feel I have the right to criticise them: they published something false.
- Frenkie de Jong (Oct. 17)
None more so than the game’s governing bodies.
Crystal Palace chairman Steve Parish’s view of his club being banned from the Europa League by UEFA did conveniently overlook his poor inbox monitoring. “In 15 years I've never had an email from UEFA, not one,” he scoffed. “They sent a notification that this rule change was coming to info@cpfc.co.uk. Nobody saw it so they kept sending it again and again and again.”
The biggest injustice in the history of football.
- Steve Parish (July 11)
The sport’s referees—and VAR in particular—were routinely bombarded by disgruntled managers and players.
Those people there at FIFA wearing Armani, in their smart jackets, are turning this into technological football. The rules were perfect, they should give a Nobel prize to the person who invented them, and they’re ruining it.
- Joaquín Caparrós (May 18)
I just thought we had a bit more about us as a race in terms of fighting against things that derail the core of what we believe in.
- Ange Postecoglou (April 4)
The game is gone if that’s a red card.
- Thomas Frank (Dec. 20)
VAR wasn’t the only FIFA creation causing fury.
Club World Cup is the worst idea ever implemented in football.
- Jürgen Klopp (June 28)
Wishful Thinking
The skillset of a successful manager eerily overlaps with that of a cult leader. Just as those false prophets, some coach have been taken in by their own often unfounded messaging.
I have the feeling that this competition [Club World Cup] is going to be as important, if not more important, than the Champions League.
- Enzo Maresca (July 13)
In the bizarre debate over precisely what Jude Bellingham said to referee José Luis Munuera Montero during a league game last February, Ancelotti wasn’t convincing anyone:
He said f--- off, not f--- you—that’s way different.
- Carlo Ancelotti (Feb. 15)
Arteta also didn’t have many takers to his lofty opinion of Arsenal after getting knocked out of the Champions League semifinals by Paris Saint-Germain:
I don’t think there’s been a better team in the competition from what I’ve seen.
- Mikel Arteta (May 7)
Viktor Gyökeres boasted a similar confidence shortly before he signed for Arteta’s Arsenal.
You haven’t seen the best of Gyökeres yet.
- Viktor Gyökeres (July 12)
We’re still waiting for the best of Gyǒkeres at Arsenal, but fans didn’t have to hold their breath for Xabi Alonso’s best intentions to fall flat.
Hopefully we don’t have to talk about the referees. I don’t want to talk too soon.
- Xabi Alonso (Aug. 17)
The referee’s decisions drove us crazy.
- Xabi Alonso (Dec. 7)
Ange Postecoglou needed to wait just two weeks before his triumphant declaration during Tottenham’s Europa League trophy parade was spectacularly undermined by his sacking:
All the best television series, season three is better than season two.
- Ange Postecoglou (May 23)
Erik ten Hag only lasted two more days at Bayer Leverkusen after calling for more time and less wizardry.
I am no Harry Potter.
- Erik ten Hag (Aug. 29)
Amorim is still searching for the spell to break Manchester United’s curse.
Six months ago, I said the storm was coming. Today, after this disastrous season, I want to tell you that good times are coming.
- Ruben Amorim (May 25)
Wishful thinking grips players as much as managers, spreading across the globe and at every level of the footballing pyramid.
I told my friends I don’t dream of winning one Ballon d’Or, I dream of winning many.
- Lamine Yamal (Sept. 9)
What a story it would be if I went to the World Cup after I was in the [Chelsea] bomb squad and everyone had counted me out 12 months prior. It would just be the biggest middle finger to so many people, which to me is a motivation.
- Ben Chilwell (Nov. 26)
There is a fine line between being wishful and wilfully ignorant. Neil Warnock crossed it.
Beckenbauer would never have got on, would he, with the data? He’d have been playing Sunday league, Beckenbauer.
- Neil Warnock (Aug. 1)
As did Lazio’s former falconer Juan Bernabè. The divisive character in charge of the club’s live eagle mascot, who had previously sparked controversy for his open admiration of Benito Mussolini, was sacked by the Serie A side after publishing a post-op image of himself following a procedure to attach a prosthetic penis. Bernabè was shocked by the club’s reaction:
For me, nudity is normal. I grew up in an open-minded family of naturists. I don’t understand what’s pornographic about the photo.
- Juan Bernabè (Jan. 13)
Wise Words
As keen as its seedy underbelly is still spill out on show, football can also offer some wholesome moments.
Iñigo Pérez had the perfect sentiment to express Rayo Vallecano’s wholly unexpected qualification for European competition at the end of last season:
My grandad used to say to me ‘effort equals reward.’ That’s not always true, but I’m happy that tonight it is.
- Iñigo Pérez (May 24)
Dan Burn enjoyed his own fairytale when helping his boyhood club Newcastle end a 56-year trophy drought two days after earning his a first England call-up at the age of 32.
I don’t want to go to sleep because I feel like I’m dreaming and it’s all going to be a lie.
- Dan Burn (March 16)
Leicester City’s Premier League title winner Claudio Ranieri knows all about the fleeting joys this game can conjure.
This is football: sometimes it gives you beautiful things, other times less beautiful. You need to know how to accept it.
- Claudio Ranieri (April 13)
Luka Modrić enjoyed more of these “beautiful things” than most players during his trophy-laden Real Madrid career. The end of that stay in the Spanish capital threatened to be a sad one, but not in the eyes of the sage playmaker.
Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.
- Luka Modrić (May 25)
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