Jorge Valdano Quotes

"I swam through the ocean only to drown at the shore" - Valdano on working the entire year to be called for the national team in 1990, only to not make the last team sheet

"If you want to learn about crises go to a football club, it will have at least four per season"

"Of all the unimportant things, football is the most important" (Also attributed to John Paul II)

"Those that spend the day talking about sacrifice and grit are those that have little to teach"

After losing to Las Palmas 2 - Valencia 0: "It has been a useful defeat"

"Those that betray an order are crafty; those that betray trust, traitors"

"Nowhere did I learn more about myself and others than at the pitch"

"The super leader and his desire to control everything can be summed in a sentence. If I don't fix this no one will"

"I'm more afraid of success than failure. Success makes us so sure of ourselves that we do not analyze the factors that lead us to our success. Instead, in failure there's an error that lurks that makes us reflect and in that process there is learning and that makes us better"

"In Spain the great forwards, like the best perfumes of the world, come in a small container"

After Chendo nutmegged Maradona: "It's as if the birds were shooting the rifles"

On the beautiful game:

"Everyone wants to win, but only the mediocre not aspire to beauty"

"Some will say that in football it only matters to win and others, more candid, will still think that if this is a spectacle it's also important to be liked"

"The bacillus of efficiency has also attacked football, and some dare to ask what's the point in playing well. I feel tempted to tell about the time they dared to ask Borges what is poetry for, to which he answered: "What is a sunrise for? What are caresses for? What is the smell of coffee for?" Each question sounded like a sentence: they are for pleasure, for emotion, for living."

"Every team that is good to the ball, is also good to the public."

"Romantic? Playing well is useful. You win games and you win titles"

"Playing against a team that's not interested in attacking? It's like making love to a tree"

On Maradona:

"Acting like you're God is justifiable when you play like one"

"Beyond everything else, no ball ever had a better experiene than when it was at his left foot"

"Maradona has no peers on the pitch, but he has turned his life into a show, and is now living a personal ordeal that should not be imitated."

"We should have told Maradona: "Look Diego, you play football like a God, but you're only a Man" "

"I try not to compare Messi to Maradona, but Messi's not helping"

"The world listens to Maradona as if he also offered his opinions with his left foot"

"Since he was very small, they made Maradona believe he was a god, so that's why he takes the right to judge humanity"

On Bielsa's nickname: "The only crazy thing about him is his excess of virtues"

On Romario: "Romario is a cartoon player"

On Riquelme: "You cannot play with Riquelme without playing for Riquelme"

You left out the best Maradona related quote. Valdano was commentating when Chendo nutmegged Maradona : "The birds have shot down the hunter with his pistol." or something to that effect.

Found the original quote and included it

After Chendo nutmegged Maradona: "It's as if the birds were shooting the rifles"

BarrileteCosmico wrote:Found the original quote and included it

After Chendo nutmegged Maradona: "It's as if the birds were shooting the rifles"

Haha yeah that's the one!

Anyway Valdano is a quote machine, no doubt.

valdano is incredibly witty and i cant think of a single thing i have disagreed with him on.


one of my faves is when mourinho sat benzema (higuain was injured) and played without a striker to influence perez into buying another striker.

something like "you dont cut off the nose to spite the face"

great stuff in there, always been an eloquent guy

Valdano was always my favorite Madrid staffer while he was there. Classy guy. Where is he at nowadays?

Here's even more:

"Football is beginning to be a lie well documented by the media."

And this one is just wow:

"Football is made up of subjective feeling, of suggestion - and, in that, Anfield is unbeatable. Put a stick with shit hanging from it in the middle of this passionate, crazy stadium and there are people who will tell you it's a work of art. It's not: it's shit hanging from a stick [...] if football is going the way Chelsea and Liverpool are taking it, we had better be ready to wave goodbye to any expression of the cleverness and talent we have enjoyed for a century."

Quite the outspoken man Valdano

shit on a stick quote

barca 2011 wrote:Valdano was always my favorite Madrid staffer while he was there. Classy guy. Where is he at nowadays?

doing a lot of radio, you can hear him on cadena ser, the man knows too much football

Valdano is busy doing gorilla warfare on Flo and Mou... and what Nick said.

That shit on a stick quote was a pretty hurtful dig at Pool but I took it as a compliment.

Valdano for AFA president after Grondona quits. Clean it up Jorge

Another quote from the master

"Hay jugadores quien, si les dejas en un bosque sin brujula, siempre saldrán. La mayoria se perderá". (There are players who, if you leave them in a forest without a compass, they'll always find their way out. Most players will get lost.)

One should so do a Juanma Lillo quote thread. The man may not be the best manager but him and the spoken word are romantic lovers...