To see a small, modest team built on hard work, where the players are so close, so together, win week after week, stay up there and play so well, when they're so consistent and they win the league, that makes people take them to their hearts.
The league is crazy. It's hard to win in this league, and you have teams coming at you every week with players just as good as you.
Hard work and togetherness. They go hand in hand. You need the hard work because it's such a tough atmosphere... to win week in and week out. You need togetherness because you don't always win, and you gotta hang though together.
I'm just trying to win games and give my team a chance, win as many as we can week in and week out.
I grew up in Rochester, New York, where we had the North American Soccer League. Rochester were at the time the worst team in the whole league, but week in week out I was there to support my team.
I've played in France. There, in many matches everybody is already happy if he can secure a point. Here, in Germany? Forget it! Everybody wants to win. The last-placed team in the standings would take any match with the ambition to win it. That makes it so hard, even for the best teams in the league.
Politics is a lot like football. Both involve people working in a team. One week you can be top of the league, the next week, you might slip a place. But I've never for one minute wanted to give up my devotion for my team.
The manager and the fitness staff condition every training session. They plan it out week by week on what players need. If players need a rest, they will do that; if players need to work hard, they will do that as well.
I am happy to play in the Premier League. It's a competition which encourages players to give only their very best week in, week out and you have to be 100%.
On a good team there are no superstars. There are great players who show they are great players by being able to play with others as a team. They have the ability to be superstars, but if they fit into a good team, they make sacrifices, they do things necessary to help the team win. What the numbers are in salaries or statistics don't matter; how they play together does.
I know my role on this team, and I'm expected to prepare and to perform every week and play well. I relish that opportunity - to be somebody the guys can count on week in and week out, to play really well. That's what really motivates me: to make my coaches proud, my teammates proud, and the fans proud.
We just have to try to play ball. We go week-to-week trying to find ways to win games. That is what it comes down to.
Because I always try so hard to win and had my troubles in Boston, I was suspended. At playoff time, it hurts not to be in the game with the boys. However, I want to do what is good for the people of Montreal and the team. So that no further harm will be done, I would like to ask everyone to get behind the team and to help the boys win from the Rangers and Detroit. I will take my punishment and come back next year to help the club and younger players to win the cup.
I believe in work, in connections between the players, I think what makes football great is that it is a team sport. You can win in different ways, by being more of a team, or by having better individual players. It is the team ethic that interests me, always.
When a child signs up for tennis, he or she is put on a team. I put them in a circle and then I make sure they name their own team. I would have them do their skill drills as a team and their fun drills together as a team, then they have to have a match at the end of every week. They can't just have what they call a lesson today every week.
It's hard to win in the league, because every team is good, they got players on their team. A lot harder than high school. It's competitive, and that's what I most love about it.
I think people overplay the 'Saturday Night Live' schedule. I mean, yeah, it can be some late hours. But the late hours are usually only one or two nights out of the week. You might have a crazy six-day week, but you'll work three weeks, and then you get a week off work. I'd take most jobs if it was hard work and then I got a week off.