I've been the best player on every team that I played on, so if I can't be the poster child of your team, then what else is it? It's got to be a black-white issue. Every white player I know who's the best player on their team is the poster child of that team.
When you're a child, you watch Brazil on TV and feel that desire to be a national team player, so when you get here, you make a dream come true, and it's a huge honour to me and to every player who wears the Brazil shirt.
I know how rewarding it is to play for the national team. It's the dream of every player.
Every basketball player wants to wear their team's throwback jerseys.
That was very appreciative because all the players vote for that. That's the highest award anyone can get in the NFL. Every team in the NFL votes for the most valuable player. I was injured. I had appendicitis the first part of the season, but I came back after ten days. Nobody came back that early. No player wants to sit on the bench. No player wants to be inactive. Everybody wants to play.I came back in ten days. I had the uniform on and played. I played those next games until I got kicked in the head.
You cannot compare the way someone plays for a club and for a national team. At a club, you spend every day with the same players. In a national team, you are with your team-mates for only a few days.
I think the only thing that matters is you win as a team and you lose as a team. And so the team needs to understand that no one player is bigger than any other player. Everybody has a role... Every single role is important.
It's not easy, especially for a German national team player who did great things in the past and maybe is struggling. That's why I think most of the German national team play abroad because if you don't play for Bayern Munich and you don't always win, it's difficult.
Bernard is a great player, a player for the Brazilian national team, and I also followed his progress with Atletico Mineiro.
Every player that I've ever been around that's worth a damn wants to be challenged and wants to be pushed, and wants to be coached hard, and wants to be held accountable.
I've had the opportunity to play with Neymar on the national team. Now I'm playing alongside Messi. He's a different player, but he's the best player in the world.
I had role models in my community, guys that were older than me and played at university or on the national team. Eli Pasquale was always around UVic when I was a young player, and the national team was around Victoria a little bit, so I got to watch those guys and learn from them.
I want a team where the fans are excited to come to our games, to see a team that wants to win and wants to fight for every minute.
I don't like it when a player says, 'I like freedom; I want to play for myself.' Because the player has to understand he is part of a team with 10 other players. If everyone wants to be a jazz musician, it will be chaos. They will not be a team, and nothing will be possible.
It's tough at first. You realize in the NBA, it's not easy. Each and every night, you're playing against that player that was the best high school player, that player that was the best player on his college team.
It had never been a decision to choose between the French national team or the Senegalese national team because I was growing up in France and playing in the French youth national team, so it was something really normal.