Inzamam-ul-Haq Quotes

It's hard to transition out of football. Even when you're super successful, guys who have played 18 or 20 years and have won four Super Bowls, they still have difficulty with that transition. They believe they're not ever going to do anything that important again.

I never felt I would get to the stage where I would to have to actively think about retiring from international football as I always thought it would pass me by.

It's true: a lot of sportspeople really struggle to find something to do when they finish. It tips them into all sorts of strange things. With ex-footballers, it's really scary. I think 70% of them get divorced within five years. It's hard. You go from being really famous to not that famous. Your salary drops through the floor.

Too many fighters stay in the game for too long. They stay because it's awfully hard to walk away from the roar of the crowd. Really hard. You live for that and so you stay too long. And you might have a wife and kids to feed. So you keep fighting because you don't know how to do anything else.

As a sports person, you are always aware that at some point your career is coming to an end and you have to do something else. I always knew it had to end one day, and I was very determined to make sure I wasn't going to be known as an ex-racing driver.

I see myself playing as long as I am partially enjoying the game and partially successful and they are paying me. But honestly, two more years is about all I can take.

I've always looked at my career as an athlete would look at his. I won't play forever. Some don't know when to walk away, but the smart ones do.

I didn't want to be one of those ex-pros, aye hanging around. I think that's wrong.

I've said many times in the past that my career's not going to go on much longer; I'm not going to keep going and riding until I'm in my 30s and things like this.

You know, even though I feel that I can still play the game, God has made the answer clear to me. Retirement is now. I have to retire as a Green Bay Packer.

Even now I can say I'd love to finish my career here, and then stay in the game after that.

If I had my time again and was able to change one thing from my career then I wouldn't have retired. I would have played for Wales longer.

No professional athlete likes to admit that he has played too long. There is too much money involved, rarely enough saved, and there is the eternal hope that age has not withered skills.

If I am still fighting at 35 I will be disappointed.

Your career goes fast, just a blink of an eye and you're an ex-baseball player, longer than you are a baseball player. I try not to think about it too much, but it seems like it does go fast.

I am finding I have to watch what I am doing otherwise I may as well be in full-time football again and, while I'm available if something interesting comes up to take me to the end of the season, I don't want a long-term commitment at this stage in my life.

My wife, Olivia, always thought I was one day going to go into coaching. But after playing until I was 37, I didn't want to subject my family to that nomad life. I think I definitely could have done it.

When I get done playing basketball, I'm definitely not going to be a rapper. I'm not going to be an old person who is focused on being a rapper.

From making my international debut as a 16-year-old to now 37, it has been a good 21 years of my prime life spent not at home but at the ground - different countries, hotels, grounds, coaches, travel etc. It's been a very privileged journey.

Whether I'd stopped playing professionally at 17 - or if I stop at 35 - tennis will always be a part of my life.

I wanna play until I am 45 if my body will let me. After football, I have no idea.

I was enjoying life at West Ham; I really was. I wanted to do the whole five years there, become a favourite with the fans, and end my career there.

The workload with Test cricket was too much as I want to extend my career for as long as I can.

For me, I just focus on playing, playing at a high level. And when you can't do that any longer, you've got to get off the train.

I think everybody's ideal is to have a wonderful career with one franchise, like Kobe and Tim Duncan.