“There was huge pressure, especially before the big games. Not many people believed in us, but we believed in ourselves. We wanted to do something good and we did.”

All of us at Juventus agreed Manchester United were the best side we met in the Champions League. They have so many talented young players and can only get better and better. Giggs is truly world class.

It’s hard to explain but I have a need to play intensely every day, to fight every match hard. And this desire never to stop fighting is something else I learnt in the place where I grew up.

Nobody knows if Zidane is an angel or demon. He smiles like Saint Teresa and grimaces like a serial killer.

If Zizou kept his temper, he would not be the genius that he is.

It’s true, pressure is something that goes with football nowadays. You need to accept it, and everything that it involves – the good and the bad.

Every day I think about where I come from and I am still proud to be who I am: first, a Kabyle from La Castellane, then an Algerian from Marseille, and then a Frenchman.

Everything I have achieved in football is due to playing football in the streets with my friends

The French team has given me so much and I want to help it. I told myself I did not have much time left in soccer, and I want to profit from it to the maximum.

Mandela has played a crucial part in history. He’s done some extraordinary things, not only for his country but also for the whole world.

I have always said the French team is the most important thing that has happened to me. I thought deeply about it and I want to play for France again.

Football boots are very technical and have lots of specific requirements.

Ronaldinho is a special player, but Thierry Henry is probably technically the most gifted footballer ever to play the beautiful game.

Everything Iniesta does impresses me. He could even play as goalkeeper. He’s magical.

I have decided to come back for Les Bleus.

In France, everybody realized that God exists, and that he is back in the French international team. God is back, there is little left to say.

Sometimes I don’t know what takes me over during a game. Sometimes I just feel I have moved to a different place and I can make the pass, score the goal or go past my marker at will.

As you well know, you just can’t believe everything you see and hear, can you?

For those who believe, no proof is necessary. For those who disbelieve, no amount of proof is sufficient.

I believe that there’s something interesting about anyone and everyone – you just have to figure out what that something is.

When you believe in things that you don’t understand, then you suffer.

Ambition has to be joined with expectancy. A sense that you have a dream for yourself that you believe can happen.

Believe that you are bigger than your difficulties, for you are, indeed.

Pain is not wrong. Reacting to pain as wrong initiates the trance of unworthiness. The moment we believe something is wrong, our world shrinks and we lose ourselves in the effort to combat the pain.

On any day – in any given event – you have to believe in yourself and back yourself 100%