Motivation Quote by Bill Shankly

Shankly’s genius here is how he smuggles a whole moral philosophy into a supposedly dull bit of coaching talk. By calling football “terribly simple,” he isn’t flattening the sport; he’s attacking the vanity that grows around it: the cult of the genius dribbler, the tactical mysticism, the excuse-making when a team can’t do the basics under pressure. The line is a slap at everyone who wants football to be complicated enough to hide inside.

The intent is disciplinary. “Giving and taking of passes” frames the game as exchange, not exhibition. “Making yourself available” is the key phrase: it turns athletic skill into civic duty. Availability is off-ball movement, yes, but it’s also an ethic of responsibility. Don’t just want the ball; create the conditions where the ball can find you. That’s a demand for humility and work, the unglamorous labor that makes “talent” look inevitable.

Context matters: Shankly built Liverpool into a modern powerhouse by selling a collective identity as something almost sacred. In mid-century British football culture, where grit and teamwork were prized but often romanticized into clichés, he sharpened the message into a practical creed. The subtext is almost anti-romantic: football is not a mystery to be solved by heroes; it’s a test of whether you can repeat simple actions flawlessly when the crowd is loud, the legs are heavy, and fear makes everyone hide.

“Terribly” does double duty: it’s simple in concept, brutal in execution. That’s the point.