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I am not a man of many words, but I can honestly say that playing football is all I have ever wanted to do and to have had such a long and successful career at Manchester United has been a real honour. This was not a decision that I have taken lightly but I feel now is the right time for me to stop playing. To have been part of the team that helped the Club reach that 19th title is a great privilege.
I think the difference between Real Madrid and Barcelona against the rest of the league is always getting bigger. It's going to be a league of two and I'm not sure if Atletico Madrid are really going to be there, what they've done is amazing - reaching the Champions League final twice and winning the league - but I think they're starting to fall behind. For Zizou, winning La Liga is the real challenge.
In the last 15 to 20 years the best central midfielder that I have seen — the most complete — is Scholes. I have spoken with Xabi Alonso about this many times. Scholes is a spectacular player who has everything. He can play the final pass, he can score, he is strong, he never gets knocked off the ball and he doesn’t give possession away. If he had been Spanish then maybe he would have been valued more.
The greatest player in the world. Ronaldinho? Absolutely. I just can't get enough of watching him play - he's a delight for the eye. His technique is incredible, his touch, his vision, he scores and he orchestrates everything. He's just the complete player. I know how difficult it is for a forward playing at this level, but for him it's so easy. He does it every single game and it's just unbelievable to watch.
I come from a generation where I couldn't even contemplate such a thing. I find it amazing... You can become a multi-millionaire as a club player without playing international football. But international football is about individual pride and wanting to perform at the highest level. If I got picked at 41, I would have played, even if I thought I would make a fool of myself. I just wanted to play for my country.
He is a legend and he's going to be remembered for a long time. Just to play alongside him and learn from him has been an absolute pleasure. I think he is a footballer's footballer; he has been at this level for so long. As long as he is part of us we always feel we have a chance. We appreciate the way he goes about his business. I have never met a character like Scholesy, certainly not someone who is that good.
I'm a footballing romantic just like Johan Cruyff. We like football that is attractive, attacking and easy on the eye. When you win playing like this it's twice as satisfying. I've always played attacking football: my footballing ideals are very clear and well defined. I've grown up at Barcelona with that style and that's the one I like. I think it's good to win like that, by taking the initiative right from the off.
I had to really do some studying and examination of my own songwriting and I realized that, there's not a formula by any stretch of the imagination and aren't any rules, but there are principles. The first one is that art is a process, not a product. In fact, that holds true for damn near everything we do in life. The product is just something that happens. If you're faithful to the process, the product takes care of itself.
We singer-songwriter people, we're used to getting up and doing our own thing in front of people, and we're it. We're the band, artist, writer, producer, front man. We're the whole thing. You develop, it's not smugness, but this self-reliance, that can limit your creativity. When you're willing and able to invite others into it, you wind up getting a piece of work that's bigger and better than anything you ever imagined it could be.
I've still got Paul Scholes' shirt at home which I swapped with him once. When I was at Liverpool he was one of the players I liked most. Maybe he's not valued as much as he should be in England because of the style of football there and because he keeps a low profile. Perhaps he would have been more valued in Spain, where midfielders like him form part of the 'ideal.' Fans in Spain rate him very highly and I admire him a huge amount.
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My mom had always wanted me to better myself. I wanted to better myself because of her. Now when the strikes started, I told her I was going to join the union and the whole movement. I told her I was going to work without pay. She said she was proud of me. (His eyes glisten. A long, long pause.) See, I told her I wanted to be with my people. If I were a company man, nobody would like me anymore. I had to belong to somebody and this was it right here.
In an echo of earlier times, the climate change prophets have in recent years tried to silence counter views and suppress dissent. August members of the Royal Society, a body once noted for its cultivation of debate in science, are now leaders of the 'science is settled' camp: the only debate they consider to be legitimate is about choice among the different forms of the centralized action they believe is required to deal with the problems they foresee.
Among the hundreds of so-called "UFO reports" each year, a sizable fraction of those clearly observed by reputable witnesses remain unexplained-and difficult to explain in conventional terms. There is a modicum of physical evidence, radar cases, residual effects, and some films-and photographs in support of the unexplained cases. Collectively, these cases constitute a genuine scientific mystery, badly in need of well-supported, systematic investigation.
Kids who are least impressive in my class are the ones who only listen to one kind of music. They only listen to country or only to rap or to gospel or anything. It's a sad thing. I try really hard to get them to go out and listen to things. It's amazing what you learn. ... I'm still trying to learn. It's not like I'm going to be a calypso singer. That's not going to happen, but I'm sure there's something in that, that I can learn from and apply to my own work.
Climbing is the lazy man's way to enlightenment. It forces you to pay attention, because if you don't, you won't succeed, which is minor - or you may get hurt, which is major. Instead of years of meditation, you have this activity that forces you to relax and monitor your breathing and tread that line between living and dying. When you climb, you always are confronted with the edge. Hey, if it was just like climbing a ladder, we all would have quit a long time ago.
The one great thing about football is that whatever happens it will manifest itself on the pitch. If it's right, you'll see it on the pitch, if it's wrong, it will be on the pitch. In business you can get fellas who are doing crooked deals and nobody knows anything about it. There is an ultimate honesty about football. Politics is part of the lying game, I wouldn't trust any of them. In football you can hide for a while, but ultimately the truth comes out. I always loved that.
So I realized when I was successful in a piece, it was because I didn't abandon a notion early on what it ought to be, and I let it take me along. So I've had songs that started out as being about the environment and ended up being love songs and love songs that ended up being about the environment. I've had things that I thought would be a poem and realized that it was just too big for that. I've got to do something larger and it became a play. I wrote one poem that started a whole play.
I love playing for my country. I see it as the biggest privilege of my career, so there's no way I'm going to volunteer to give that up. I want to go on for as long as I can. I've got 68 caps and I'd love to think I could get 100. I know there are some players who reach their 30s and announce their international retirement. I totally understand and respect their decisions. We are away a lot and for long spells. But although it's hard, we're doing one of the most privileged jobs in the world.
For me as a midfielder, Paul Scholes was the best possible teacher. When people ask me my hardest opponent, I always refer to Paul in training. Facing him improved me so much because his astonishing quality gave me something to aim for. He never gave the ball away, he could nutmeg you, he could make you look a fool, his range of passing was remarkable, his touch and awareness, everything was top notch. Seeing Scholesy made you stand back and realize you had a long way to go, because he was awesome.
A part of my appreciation for the good which moments bring has come from awareness and recognition. But it has also come from a correspnding sadness which arises from their passing. When something that can never quite be reenacted comes to an end (and all moments are that way), I feel a pensiveness within. This pensiveness gives my life a quality that might be best described as bittersweet. And those moments take on double meaning and richness - because they are here now - and because they will not always be.
When I was in Dutch and Italian football, a lot of people looked at Manchester United, and when they were asked who was the best player, a lot of them said Paul Scholes. Much of what he did looked simple, but actually it was quite hard. Invariably he controlled the ball instantly and passed it straight on, keeping the game moving. He made inch-perfect passes across the pitch; he saw the gaps and could play the ball through them. So it didn't surprise me that so many top-class international footballers recognized his quality.
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This is the United spirit: you can play everywhere. If you want to win, you have to accept it. You can see Antonio Valencia playing right-back as well. Only because United play like a team. The team is the star, not only one player, that’s why you can put me and Michael Carrick at centre-back; we’re going to win because it’s the team effort and team spirit. That’s why I’m confident. I’ve said that from the beginning – in six years playing here – the Man United spirit… no one team has got that spirit. This is United. This is why I’m so proud to play here.
Our junior national teams feature increasing numbers of kids from immigrant backgrounds, but who have grown up in Germany. Their roots are elsewhere, but they feel German. They draw on two cultures, and I believe that's been a real and visible factor in the football we've been playing. One of the best and abiding images was Cacau, a Christian with Brazilian roots, celebrating a goal with Mesut Ozil, a Muslim from a Turkish background. Ozil jumped on to Cacau's shoulders, and they gazed up into the stands, both wearing Germany shirts. It was wonderfully symbolic.