I've played in a few Champions League matches and got into quarter-finals - sometimes unluckily knocked out - but you have to prepare like any other football match: you have to play the game, not the occasion. That's been instilled in me since I was a kid.

Danny Welbeck

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Getting to two finals is difficult in the same season.

It hasn't always been a sweet ride. When I was 15, I almost hated racing in finals because I was so nervous. But as I got more experienced, I had to choose between fight and flight - and I've fought every time.

Adam Peaty

Time Experience Ways

It is always nice to get to finals, but never nice to lose in them.

Alan Smith

Ways Way Them

In the 123rd minute of the semifinal game at the Olympics against Canada, I scored the game-winning goal that brought us to the finals. You can't replicate those do-or-die moments in practice or a friendly game.

Alex Morgan

Mom Men You

You want to play in finals, and they don't come much bigger than the Champions League final.

Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain

You Want Than

I may not have played men's football, but I've been at World Cups as a player. I know the emotions. I've been in quarter finals, a semi-final. I'd been substituted and sat on the bench watching us lose a penalty shoot-out. I know what happens, what you need when the pressure's on.

Alex Scott

Men Art You

I was fortunate enough to play in a number of finals, and I can still remember waking with butterflies in my stomach. It is at moments like those you realise why you fell in love with football in the first place.

Alex Scott

Mom Men Love

It was not until the end of my freshman year in high school that I thought I could really have a future in track and field. I definitely did not think I could make it to the Olympics back then, though; I was just focused on making it to the state finals!

Allyson Felix

Future Year Used

I'd love to feature for the Barbarians. I'd love to win a Champions Cup, and I'd love to get to another World Cup and make a fist of it: get to a World Cup final at least and see what could have been, particularly after 2011 when Wales reached the semi-finals.

Alun Wyn Jones

Love Art World Cup

I did GCSE's and A-levels. I did my finals after the Lions tour in 2009 to get my law degree. So I've always had an eye on life beyond playing, irrelevant of the period in my career.

Alun Wyn Jones

Life Car Yin

In the Finals, you want to set a statement like, 'This is me. This is who I am.' You know everyone's watching.

Andre Iguodala

Men You Who

It will be hard for us and it will be an achievement just to get out of the group stages and through to the quarterfinals, but I am personally dreaming of reaching the final!

Andriy Shevchenko

Men Art Age

A chance, as a coach, to take a team to the World Cup finals is probably as high up the tree as it gets, certainly with one-day cricket.

Andy Pick

Chance World Cup World

I got to play in a crowd, play in Wimbledon finals, be the guy on a Davis Cup team for a while. Those are opportunities not a lot of people get. As much as I was disappointed and frustrated at times, I'm not sure that I ever felt sorry for myself or begrudged anybody any of their success.

Andy Roddick

Time Success Wimbledon

I got to play in a crowd, play in Wimbledon finals, be the guy on a Davis Cup team for a while. Those are opportunities not a lot of people get.

Andy Roddick

Wimbledon While Up

I've never had a chance to go to the Finals, and I don't have a ring - and that would be the only thing that would get me to think about it.

Antonio Davis

Chance Would Think

The Finals are about a test of wills.

Bill Laimbeer

Wills Will Test

I've left Boro in the Premiership, which was always what I wanted to do. Actually that's not quite true. I took them to three cup finals, where they'd never been before. But I had set my eyes on being the first manager in their history to deliver a major trophy.

Bryan Robson

History Age Yes

When games get tight in the playoffs, especially in the Finals, there's no space. There's no clean looks.

C. J. McCollum

Space Tight T

Sometimes when you get to the press conferences, you hear you're going to play this person in the semifinals, and in the quarters, you're going to play her. And I'm like, 'Hold on a second.' First of all, you have to make it there. Second, your opponent needs to make it there. It looks easier on paper than it is in real life.

Caroline Wozniacki

Time Life Art

When the Cleveland Cavaliers lost the 2015 NBA Finals to Golden State, LeBron James sat motionless in the locker room, staring straight ahead, still wearing his game jersey, for 45 minutes after the final buzzer. Here was a guy immensely wealthy, widely admired, at the peak of his powers - yet stricken, inconsolable.

Charles Krauthammer

I'm really eager to play the BWF Destination Dubai World Superseries Finals, especially after my enjoyable visit to the city.

Chen Long

All that matters is that China wins the finals, and not which one will be playing.

Chen Long

Tournament football is unlike anything else. The campaign can be great, but a finals is a different challenge.

Chris Coleman

I played over 130 matches, including four finals, so there have been many great moments.

Clarence Seedorf

When the U.S. team went on its historic run to the World Cup quarter-finals in 2002, I was thirteen years old. Each game in that run - the astonishing victory against Portugal, the resilient win over Mexico, even the gutsy but unlucky effort against the Germans - propelled me to push my other athletic interests aside and focus only on soccer.

Clint Smith

We had some great years in Portland. We went to the finals twice. We won 63 games one year. You can't tell me those weren't championship teams.

Clyde Drexler

I get this call and they go, you know, 'Do you want to do the finals?' and I go, 'Yeah, I guess, I've never, never done the finals.' Especially for somebody who's done as many thousands of games as I have, it kind of takes you one step further.

Craig Sager

Leaf fans loyalty is unshakeable. The fans keep coming back and it hurts, I have been there. I have lost in game six to go to the finals with the Maple Leafs, against Carolina and what a great final that would have been.

Curtis Joseph

Especially after going through an 82-game season, the team that's more mentally locked in and focused is usually the team that makes it to the Finals and wins the NBA championship.

Danny Green

A club like Liverpool should always expect to be in finals.

Danny Ings

I've played in a few Champions League matches and got into quarter-finals - sometimes unluckily knocked out - but you have to prepare like any other football match: you have to play the game, not the occasion. That's been instilled in me since I was a kid.

Danny Welbeck

If you reach the Champions League semifinals three times in a row that speaks for itself. To win this competition isn't easy.

David Alaba

I know I wouldn't have made the callback for 'Ma' if my father's house had not burned down because I would have been in finals. My teachers would not have been chill with me leaving in the middle of my Medieval Magic final.

Diana Silvers

As we say, finals are not to play them, they are to win them.

Diego Costa

My best years were 2010 and 2011, and the 2010 World Cup was the most incredible experience. Our tiny nation reached the semi-finals, I finished joint-top scorer in South Africa, and my goal against Germany was voted the best of the tournament. I was also named the best player of that World Cup.

Diego Forlan

In the World Cup finals, you're unlikely to meet a continental rival. In Copa America, you know they are just around the corner and that you will have to beat them to win the competition.

Diego Forlan

I watch a lot of Dwyane Wade. D-Wade was in the Finals his third year and he was getting to the free-throw line 10 times a game.

Donovan Mitchell

The 76ers hold a special place in my heart and I am intrigued by the opportunity to return to Philadelphia, where I was part of a rebuilding program, joining the team the year after it went 9-73 and going to the NBA Finals just four years later.

Doug Collins

KeyArena was rocking, loud. The Finals in '96, I thought that was loud.

Dwane Casey

For a young player like me, it is good to play for a club that can get to the semi-finals because one of the reasons I play football is for these big games.

Eden Hazard

I was in two successive European finals early in my career, so initially, you think that sort of thing is going to happen regularly. Then suddenly, it dries up, and before you know it, 13 years have passed before you get your next chance.

Edwin van der Sar

Being able to put the ball in the back of the net is so important at the highest level and could be the difference between reaching the semi-finals and actually winning the World Cup.

Eniola Aluko

By the time you get to the conference finals, you can't hide. It's not like your opponent is going to be experienced on how to try to exploit you. You have to have the right kind of habits and hopefully have been tested enough in those habits... to be able to still get to your identity.

Erik Spoelstra

Everyone loves playing in semi-finals and finals.

Ernesto Valverde

I'm very hard on myself. Sometimes too hard on myself. When I lost in the Wimbledon finals, I was so sad, I cried. I had the runner-up trophy! It's still a great accomplishment, but I was so mad.

Eugenie Bouchard

You think about past World Cups - in 2006, it was a fantastic Brazil team, but we did not do so well that year. In 2010, the same: it did not go far, either - only the quarter-finals. But in '94 and 2002, Brazil did not play the best football but won the World Cup; they found a way to win.

Fernandinho

The year after Russell retired, in the famous seventh game of the NBA Finals at Madison Square Garden, Willis Reed, the New York Knicks center, limped onto the court against the Los Angeles Lakers, inspiring his team and freezing Chamberlain into a benign perplexity.

Frank Deford

You remember the finals you lose as much as the ones you win.

Frank Lampard

I did feel support right from the start from LeBron. He's always shown me a great deal of respect dating back to our battles when I was in Indiana and competing with the Heat in the conference finals, and coaching him in the All-Star Game.

Frank Vogel