You can't tap somebody in the helmet and say, 'Go be physical.' If you're not physical, you can't play physical, and that's a big part of what we believe in.
Every quarterback can throw a ball; every running back can run; every receiver is fast; but that mental toughness that you talk about translates into competitiveness.
It took me a long time to realize that football isn't martyrdom, but a game that's enjoyable, and one in which getting better at it is supposed to be fun. Perhaps it would have been better if I had understood this as a young man.
You can say what you want about Carlos Tevez, but when he plays, he plays to win, and he plays for his team-mates.
Forever, we all had a real clear understanding of what Parcells' teams looked like and played like: tough as hell and didn't beat themselves.
We all feel that hunger in football. With Cruyff, it was different. He deepened and changed the hunger so you became conscious of why you are getting better.
The game's my life and I'm so passionate about it. When you see your life so intertwined with football it can make things very difficult. You might go and watch a film and start imagining footballers running across the screen, you know?
As a footballer, you have to be confident you can win all the time so it does not come as a surprise.
I don't think about being a goalscorer. Basically, it doesn't interest me. It's nice to score, of course, but I don't go round thinking about this.
Biggest lesson I learned my first year in the NFL is no one gives a crap about what you did last week. This league is about what have you done for me now. That's the NFL. It's also our culture. So you keep working hard because that's the biggest truth about football.
One of the things you learn in football is that you're only as good as your last outing. I don't like to reflect on what we've done in the past. I'm not a very good storyteller, for one thing. I'd disappoint you. When it's time, I'll talk about the good old days. But it's a sign of old age, reveling in the past.
Every player thinks he's Maradona when he joins a big club. That happens to all of us, but then you start to notice it in the younger players. You see kids who think they're rock stars, wearing extravagant clothes and driving fancy cars... and sometimes you have to take them aside and have a word.
My motto is I'm going to go out and work every day no matter who is here. It's a mentality that I always play with since I've been playing football.
I don't think about it, 'Wow! I'm the quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys.' For me, this is my job. This is what I've been preparing to do. And I really want to win badly.
If I'm on the bench in a Premier League game, I'm thinking, 'What can I do coming off the bench?'
My talent as a footballer was medium. But I had heart, a will to win, to work to overcome my limitations.
When it's over, it's over is part of football's greatest appeal to me. When a game ends, win or lose, it's time to prepare for the next one.
Just understand that I'm trying to get to the quarterback by any means necessary. And if I have to throw somebody out of the way to do it, it is what it is.
Being seen as the best striker in Europe doesn't spur me on-it's helping my team to success. That's my only aim. I'm not a machine.
Football is my base; that's where I learned to be tough. I was a strong safety, and that's what I do: I hit people. The mentality is football, the wrestling is precision.
In football, you have to be strong in the head. The mentality is important, and I do have this quality so I can keep going.
That is the way it is in football: once a scorer, always a scorer.
You train far more in France than in England. Here, we still see football as a game. Football is a job. There is still the mentality where training is at 11, you come in at 10:30, and when it is finished, you leave straight away.
A Man United team should never be outworked.
I would say I'm more traditional than I am superstitious. I don't, for example, have to do things ritually before the game in order to feel comfortable going to the game. But I don't think I'm naturally a football player. I don't have that grit and that killer instinct.
