“I still look at myself and want to improve.”

I’ve always come back from adversity, and I’ve always had the mentality of proving people wrong.

You will go through tough times, it’s about getting through them.

With United, we’d all grown up together, we all wanted to win the biggest trophy in football. We did it togther.

[Meeting Mandela] was the highlight of my career; to meet such a great man and a strong man and such a passionate man about sport and life will always stay with me.

I’m not silly enough to think I’m going to change the whole culture … but I do have a belief that soccer can go to a different level.

To have a successful team, you have to have great players of course – but you have to have good personalities and good people as well.

I love little kids looking up to me, young players looking up to me, respecting me.

Everyone’s been so quick to say that I’m really thick or I haven’t got a brain. People will think whatever they want to think.

My secret is practice.

It’s is always nice to be respected as a footballer. I am going to go out and enjoy the game and if I can set one or two goals up then so be it – I would love to.

Some people think that I haven’t got the brains to be that clever.

Every situation has changed me as a person.

I wasn’t as fit as I would of liked to have been, going to the World Cup, but I’m not sure what difference that made.

It’s my responsibility to walk around the hotel with a big smile on my face and not worry about what’s happened in the last game.

I’m happy in Madrid, my kids are happy and my wife is happy, so everything’s good. If anyone knows about contracts they take a while to sort out.

I like nice clothes, whether they’re dodgy or not.

Some times your best effort just isn’t good enough.

A boss wants to pay for results, an employee wants recognition for effort. If a boss recognizes effort, they will get even better results.

Our daily objectives should include an honest effort to improve on yesterday.

Three very important points to keep growing. Great team effort.

Effort only fully releases its reward after a person refuses to quit.

Persistence, persistence, and persistence. The Power can be created and maintained through daily practice – continuous effort.

We are all born with a divine fire in us. Our efforts should be to give wings to this fire and fill the world with the glow of its goodness.

Sometimes I believe that God wants to try me, both now and later on; I must become good through my own efforts, without examples and without good advice.