It is about getting better every game. Work ethic was the first part. We were not ready to give up and the Slovaks did not give up also. That is what the Olympics are all about. We executed where we needed to execute. It was important to play the way we always play.
Number three, we're going to play very smart and we're not going to beat ourselves. If the other team is better than us and they just out execute us and play better then we can live with that, but we're going to play smart and give ourselves every opportunity to win the game.
I've never held out. I'm a first-class guy in any relationship. The first way of getting better is showing up, so I'm always going to show up and do my part and be ready to go.
Southern states in the confederacy were not ready to give up their fight to secede or give up their way of life, which was made possible in large part through the blood, sweat and tears of African slaves.
The way that I was taught to play baseball, and to me the way baseball has always been, is... Look, we play 162 games. It's a grinding, hard-nosed game. And even when I was a kid it was about not showing up your opponent. It was about playing the game with class. But, obviously I think you should have fun doing it.
It's about the process. It's about getting better. 'Let's execute on this play, let's execute on this drive.' You do those things, and over the course of the season you'll get better as a team and you'll get to a point where hopefully you're playing at a high level to win the games that really become at another level.
Something like missing a shot, and the next play you're thinking about it, or you give up a play on defense and you're thinking about it, you're frustrated about it, what's happening is that you're really thinking about yourself. You're not connected to the team. And you have to be connected, or those few plays add up.
I've always liked the way Southampton play football, high intensity and really aggressive playing. The way they play with the full-backs I'm not going to be sitting back for the whole game, it is going to give me opportunities to get forward and show what I can give in attack.
There is nothing better than work. Work is also play; children know that. Children play earnestly as if it were work. But people grow up, and they work with a sorrow upon them. It's duty.
If you're willing to give convicts time served and let them walk, why do you want to give them a criminal record? I mean, either they should be in jail, or be free. But it's all because of some internal bureaucratic stat about getting a felony conviction for the prosecutor. Everyone's got their own little game to play, but that prosecutorial part of it is not well known.
It's a group of guys that put their mind to going out and playing great football. Everybody that needed to step up, stepped up. Everybody that needed to make a play, made a play and that's what it's all about.
So, think about how you use a disc that you own of an Xbox 360 game. If I buy the disc from a store, I use that disc in my machine, I can give that disc to my son and he can play it on his 360 in his room. We both can't play at the same time, but the disc is the key to playing. I can go round to your house and give you that disc and you can play on that game as well.
I always wanted to play professional hockey. Every hockey player's dream, no matter at what level or what age, is to play professionally. At first you don't know what it's all about, but you have that dream and you always work hard toward it. The older you get, the more you start dedicating yourself to the game.
You always watch Match of the Day and think to yourself, 'I think I could've scored that chance.' But when you're young, you always want to play. For me, it's not about someone saying, 'We want you to play every game.' It's about being given the opportunity. That's more important.
Every game's a championship game. When we focus that way, get prepared that way-that this is it, you know, this is the last one, the biggest one-you get ready, you get amped up, you get that laser focus and you're ready to play.
I think we're really good about pushing each other in practice and we have high tempo and I feel like we have some of the best players in the world so just competing against one another and getting in there and pushing each other around and getting ready for that physical style of game coming up, we have to play hard and pretend it's a game.
I think it was the preparation and every thing Lombardi represented, you know, about hard work and that every game was important. So when you get to the real important games, you were ready to go.