If I hadn’t made it as a footballer I would have been an electrician. I studied to be an electrician even though I was progressing at football because you never know at that stage if you are going to be there for sure.
A Kerry footballer with an inferiority complex is one who thinks he’s just as good as everybody else.
I think if you’re a footballer, you want to play in big stadiums like Old Trafford.
In top form, Messi is the best footballer I have ever seen – period.
I’m very satisfied to close my time as footballer.
It is good for any footballer to get a run of games.
If you ask any footballer, if you haven’t won a game all season you’re not going to be confident.
I know that I don’t look like a footballer but I’ve always enjoyed working out and I’ve always been bigger than most people out there. I come from big stock. If you see my brothers and me together, we look like a wrestling tag team trio.
The way I look at it, a footballer wouldn’t play in flip-flops or dip their feet in acid and then expect to get to David Beckham’s level. My voice is my living, so I’ll be looking after it.
There was a footballer, Matt Le Tissier, from Guernsey. But as far as music, no, not many people have come out of there.
I have changed quite a lot since I came to Milan and I think I have become a more all-round footballer.
But I’m constantly surprised by the amount of interest in how I look. It’s flattering, but a little weird – at the end of the day, I’m a footballer.
I was always determined to make it as a footballer, but if things hadn’t worked out, I’d have maybe followed my dad into the building industry.
I have been following the Premier League very closely because once you have been a footballer you have an affinity with the game.
It’s tough. That’s the side people don’t see. You have to balance it, get it right, and be a dad as well as a footballer. That is part of the job. Around this time of year, it’s so important.
Being a Muslim is more important than me being a footballer. A good Muslim is a good person, so I try to be a good person. I just live the way I want to live.
I’m very aware that you lead a very peculiar existence as a professional footballer, being flown everywhere first-class and never having to queue up for anything. Of course, that’s attractive, but if you’re not careful, you end up living in a world where nothing is really real.
Removing myself as a footballer, I watch the Premier League. It’s a great league. Fantastic football is played in it.
You know, I was going to be a footballer at one stage, but… nah.
As a footballer, I have always found it better not to be too emotional. Better to be cool, consistent, clinical. Celebrate goals, yes, but keep your feelings for those you trust most.
I don’t know what I would have done had I not become a footballer. I’ve always wanted to do that, even when my family would try to stop me playing football so that I went to school.
I will not lie, people know I’m a footballer and I had to seize the moment with Zenit’s financial offer.
I don’t like thinking ‘Why me, why me, why me?’ when I was diagnosed with cancer because that would be hypocritical. I didn’t say ‘Why me?’ when I was one in a thousand who made it as a professional footballer.
People don’t understand that the feel of the surface is so important for a footballer. The ball travels on the surface; our feet move on the surface – all of that goes into how the game is actually played.
I don’t think you need motivation to win a league or a trophy. It’s every footballer’s dream. It’s why you play football. You enjoy and love the game, but you play to win and be the best.
You need to have dreams, you need to go for it, otherwise why would you be a footballer?
I was a footballer for a long, long time.
England have always had individually strong players, and I am a huge fan of Stevie Gerrard, who has the heart of a lion and is the icon of the modern footballer with his ability to attack and defend so well.
We always talk about experience and maturing, the best thing that can happen to a footballer is the game slows down for them. All of a sudden, they can see things, they can see passes, they can see space, the whole game opens up for them.
A footballer must quit at the right time.
Ever since I was six or seven, I wanted to be a professional footballer.
My Dad is finally proud of me. He always wanted me to be a footballer. He is a football hooligan, a true obsessive, if I had been born on match day he would not have been at the hospital, so for me to be able to at least pretend to be a footballer, means I’m finally allowed home at Christmas.
I wanted to be the best footballer in Belgian history. That was my goal. Not good. Not great. The best.
I think, at 32, you are past your prime as a footballer.
The myth about me as a footballer has grown: I am now the lost Maradona of Norway.
If I’m reading a book by a footballer I don’t want to read about games, how he scored or played well. People want to read what you thought, not what happened.
My dad was a professional footballer before I was alive. When I was growing up, he was the one who coached and mentored me and helped me to become what I am today. Without his coaching and without his insight and the days and the hours that he put in with me, I wouldn’t be the player that I am today.
People at school used to assume I was going to be a footballer, and it wasn’t until I got to 16, when I was at Southampton, that I had a doubt for the first time in my life. Southampton said I wasn’t big enough, but it was just because I hadn’t grown. Simple as that.
If you are a banker… you can do that for all your life, but if you are a footballer once you hit your mid 30s, you have to find something else to do.
I am from a sports background, and always wanted to become either a cricketer or footballer; in short, just play some sport and represent my country. I got diverted, but the sportsman in me is still alive.
I didn’t think I was going to make it as a footballer.
Messi is the best footballer in the world.
