FREDDIE LJUNGBERG

I went to West Ham in order to play against Arsenal as often as possible.

It takes time to know what makes an individual player tick.

If you want to play at Arsenal you need to be top, top, you need precision.

When friends come over from Europe, they think it's going to be rainy in Seattle but it's beautiful. It's a hidden pearl. And people here respect your private life.

For me, happy footballers play the best football.

I've always been interested in clothes and shopping, and I have a few friends who work in fashion.

I made a conscious decision when I was about 30 that I wanted to do something different with my life. I felt a little bit lost and didn't trust people, so I decided to move to America.

If there's a back door somewhere, I take it. I try to get about without being noticed.

You can be yourself in London. If you are a bit different in the way you dress or look it is no problem.

I felt Arsenal had let a lot of players go. When Thierry left I felt it was time for me to do something different and challenging.

I break out in a rash if I go to the gym; all I did was shave my chest.

Sometimes when you play on the wing it gets a bit isolated and you can't help as much. But if you play a bit more central I can get the ball a lot more and help a lot more.

I didn't know exactly what to expect when I first came to Seattle but I have to say that how the city and the fans have embraced me has gone beyond my wildest dreams and for that I am forever grateful.

I won almost everything there is to win and I look back with great memories.

Clubs have always wanted to buy me during the summer but I have always stayed loyal because I wanted to stay at Arsenal.

I was an underwear model for Calvin Klein for a few years. It is not something I wanted to do at first. I never regretted it, but I am a shy person, and to stand there buck naked in front of a camera was scary.

I'm really excited by this opportunity to continue helping develop and work with some of the great young players we have coming through in the first-team environment and to work alongside Unai and his coaching team to help Arsenal win trophies.

When I went to Seattle, it was quite a quiet town and we made it the biggest soccer following in America. We didn't have the paparazzi, though, and I needed that at the time.

I am not particularly disciplined, but I am stubborn like few.

I have a house with its own dock and I can take my boat out when I want.

I had to have tests for cancer and other diseases - it wasn't much fun. I was getting a shooting pain in my hip and we didn't know what it was. First of all we thought it was an old injury. But they didn't find anything wrong, even though when I had an ultrasound test it was all really swollen.

I am not that shy.

My roles for Arsenal and Sweden are very different.

Sometimes you have to just plug away, plug away in your game of football and maybe when your opponent gets a bit more tired you get that little extra metre and that's when you score the goals.

As a child I could lie in bed and do absolutely nothing for hours but once I decided to do something, big or small, I could not stop until it had been completed.