The biggest ambition in my career is still to win the European Cup. I want to have a picture of that to look at later; I want to have that medal. You can have a contract that is better than your friends, but no player looks back and says: 'I won more money.'
You can have a contract that is better than your friends, but no player looks back and says, 'I won more money.'
As soon as you win the Cup, you don't want to lose that feeling. You want to win more than one. As soon as you taste it, it's kind of like a really good restaurant. You go there once, and you want to come back more than once because it's great.
How to find joy? Let your ambition disappear; ambition is the barrier. Ambition means an ego trip: "I want to be this, I want to be that - more money, more power, more prestige."
I want to win games, want to win championships. I want to go to the World Cup. I want to win a World Cup. I want to play in Champions League. I want to have fun throughout all of that, and I want my family to be a part of that through the entire path.
Whether you want more money, whether you want more fame, whether you want more attention, whether you want a bigger house, whether you want a bigger contract, whatever it is you want, you have to win your next fight. That's it.
As a player, you always want to know what you can do. At the end of your career, you can look back and say, look, I was able to get this much out of my playing career and I was able to become this type of player. I think that's what allows you to sleep well at night.
You can't start out at 20 in whatever your profession is and say, "I want to win an Olympic medal," or "I want to become president," or "I want to win the Pulitzer Prize." If you love what you're doing, it's sort of a nice thing that happens toward the end of your career, or in the middle of your career. It is not the reason you were doing it. The reason you were doing it is because every day you wake up in the morning and you can't wait to learn something new.
The hunger doesn't diminish when you win something. If you have the chance to win the European and Spanish Super Cups and the Club World Cup, that makes you want to win even more.
It is a big achievement to win a medal at the World Cup. Winning a medal is like doing well at Wimbledon, in tennis. It is one of the biggest shooting competitions in the world.
The incentive of a medal at the biggest sporting arena in the world is what drives me. Before I hang my gloves, I want to win the Olympic medal, and my performance at London will decide my future in the sport.
As a soccer player, I wanted an FA Cup winner's medal. As an actor you want an Oscar. As a chef it's three-Michelin's stars, there's no greater than that. So pushing yourself to the extreme creates a lot of pressure and a lot of excitement, and more importantly, it shows on the plate.
As a tennis player, or any professional athlete, our career has a shelf life. I don't want to waste any opportunities, I don't want to look back on it when I'm 45 and think I could have done a lot more.
We've still got a cathode ray TV with a big back. An ancient, massive thing. All our teenagers' friends come round and say the TV's really cool. The picture is so much better than HD TVs - everything looks like film. It's not digital, and we still haven't got Netflix. It's too confusing.
I want to be the world's number one one-day player; I want to win a World Cup, win the championship with Lancashire - those are my motivations.
Two or three years ago, every game I want to score. And after I score a goal I have a spark and I'm so happy I want more. Now I'mkind of different. I'm not saying I lost my spark - I still have it - but I don't chase the goal as much as I used to. I'm playing for the team andI still know I can score, but it's different than two or three years back.Look at great teams like Detroit a couple of years ago; they winthe Stanley Cup and guys only score 25 goals, nobody has a really big season. You have to play defense, that's how you win.
As a player, perhaps you have the chance to take part in a World Cup or a European Championship twice or three times in a lifetime. Other competitions, you have another match three days later. Here, it's different: we know we're out if we don't win.