Top 65 Quotes & Sayings by Mario Kempes

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an Argentinian footballer Mario Kempes.
Last updated on September 18, 2024.
Mario Kempes

Mario Alberto Kempes Chiodi is an Argentine former professional footballer who played as a striker/center midfielder. His father, Mario, also a footballer, inspired him to play from a young age. At the age of seven he began playing with a junior team and at fourteen, he joined the Talleres reserves. A prolific goalscorer, at club level he is best known for playing for Valencia, finishing as La Liga's top goalscorer twice, and amassing 116 goals in 184 league games for the club.

I love being able to play myself if I fancy, and take myself off as soon as I've had enough.
What Guardiola has done as coach of Barcelona is really spectacular.
All of us know that Messi cannot win alone, except for the fanatics or the mental patients who put in doubt Messi's talents, saying that he is a bottler, that he feels nothing for Argentina, that he doesn't sing the anthem, that he goes to the bathroom 50 times before a game. Those are things that are said to make an impression.
Messi is a human being and we have to respect him. — © Mario Kempes
Messi is a human being and we have to respect him.
Messi owes something to Argentina. He knows that.
It's not easy to carry forward the national team because you have a whole country behind you. But I would be willing to take charge of the Argentina national team.
Every time the national team took to the field, we had the confetti shower and the ticker-tape thing.
It's impossible to replace him. You will not find another Messi, but you can train a team without having the best in the world.
Missing the 1978 World Cup made Maradona an even better player, as he showed on the following year at the Youth World Cup, and he never looked back.
Machines can break down under pressure. But so can humans.
Clearly finals are one-off games and they always depend on starting well in order to impose yourself on the game.
We cannot pretend that Messi will solve all the problems. He cannot carry everything on his shoulders.
Now winning is more important and it trumps the way you achieve it. Unfortunately for soccer, the style doesn't matter so much.
Argentina have always produced very good players, and mine is just another name on the list. — © Mario Kempes
Argentina have always produced very good players, and mine is just another name on the list.
You don't get called up to the national team because you tell good jokes, you are funny, you are handsome or because you are Messi's friend. You are called up because you have a role at your given club and you have personality.
Dybala only lacks the belief that he is a great footballer. After his great experience at Palermo he had a great start with Juve and he did beautiful things.
Maradona doesn't play soccer anymore, he coaches it. He needs to remember that.
It's different the way the game is played now and the way we played the game.
I love travelling and if my wife and my daughter are with me - I am happy.
Messi is Messi and Messi is Barcelona.
I started every match knowing that this could be my day. It's like in life; you can have a bad business idea, but then you have a new one the next day and you just go for it.
I remember listening to my first World Cup in 1966. I was with my parents, helping them build our house and listening to it on the radio. We still didn't have a TV back then, but fortunately the first time I listened to a World Cup Jose Maria Munoz was commentating, and he's one of the best there is.
Sometimes it is not bad to be scared.
A World Cup without Argentina and without Messi would be a catastrophe.
Maradona was absolutely the best player I ever played with.
Even Cristiano Ronaldo has developed from a selfish goalscorer into someone who likes to pass the ball.
In one game I'd have defenders completely wiping me out, but three days later I'd have my chance to get revenge. What had happened a few days earlier would never affect my confidence.
Lautaro, for a couple of years now, has proven to be a great No.9. He's shown it at Inter and Argentina.
If you ask me who I would have liked to play with, I would say that with Messi.
I am lucky because I can feel at home anywhere, I don't get homesick.
All teams starting the season should aim to be as high as possible and Valencia are no exception.
Good players can do well everywhere and Soldado is a good footballer.
I have worked in so many countries over the years that I must have moved house about 20 times.
When Diego won the World Cup in 1986, perhaps he had the luck that Messi has not had. Diego had very good teammates and things went well.
English football is a lot different to Spanish football but Soldado is an international for Spain, he is a player who has become accustomed to playing against great teams - and he has always scored goals.
I love working, wherever it is.
For any tournament to succeed, you need the big guns to fire.
The game was different then, when I used to play. The ball ran more than the players and to some extent there was greater technical skill.
Argentina has never been able to convince itself that it can win in Brazil. For some reason we have always struggled. — © Mario Kempes
Argentina has never been able to convince itself that it can win in Brazil. For some reason we have always struggled.
You can only succeed by playing in the way which comes naturally to you.
What's the problem that people have here in Spain with Maradona and Messi? They spend the whole day comparing them.
I couldn't be bothered with the whole shaving-every-couple-of-days routine.
I'd love to work in Argentina but there aren't any possibilities to manage there. The managers always remain the same. They just swap clubs once in a while.
The only ones who would be happy if Messi doesn't go to the World Cup would be Maradona fans because, that way, they can keep saying that he's the best.
It is very difficult to play beside Messi and whoever understands it any other way is a fool.
I am just one of many who have played their part in Argentina's football history.
Maradona is Maradona, that's indisputable, but he doesn't play anymore. He stopped playing a long time ago.
Times have changed. Football has changed.
On the field Icardi always does a good job, what he does off it, I don't care at all. What I do care is what he does for my team on the pitch. — © Mario Kempes
On the field Icardi always does a good job, what he does off it, I don't care at all. What I do care is what he does for my team on the pitch.
I will tell you another thing, we Argentines criticise Messi because we are specialists in criticising what is ours.
I think players of the national team are not entitled to make an opinion about who is making the team and who is not. At least in my days it was like that.
This is one thing every coach can take from Menotti. If you win the World Cup, no one can criticize you.
People are saying: 'the Argentina uniform should not be stained.' Forget about it. The Argentina uniform is already pretty stained.
They say Maradona is God, but there's only one God!
Argentina is a powerhouse in soccer.
Suarez and Neymar play the way they play because of him. They are great players but they are made greater by Messi.
Every time Maradona speaks it makes life difficult for everyone and there are those of us who don't agree with that, not when he talks about football, but rather about people.
I have stopped being a Valencia ambassador through contract but not through the heart.
You can put the players on the pitch but they always move and systems change. I think, though, that Messi has to be a special case and that the other nine outfield players should support him. But one player on his own is not going to win you the World Cup.
You cannot give the ball to Messi all the time.
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