I won promotion four times as a player, and I'm not going to deny I would enjoy another one as a manager, but you can ask any of the clubs I went up with and they will tell you the same. My focus was always dead calm, always on the next game.
That is the difference from being a manager and being a player: As a player, if you sign a contract for four years, if you want to be there for four years, you are. But as a manager, it always depends on the sack. You are always under pressure.
We're not going to do anything different for this game since we're not treating this game any different than another game. Every game is a championship game for us, so we'll treat this one, the last one and the next one exactly the same. And that goes for our practices leading up to it as well.
I cannot speak for other players, but it is always good when the manager comes to ask how you're feeling and makes you feel calm before you play the game.
Football has always been a contact sport, and it's always going to be a violent sport, and there are going to be repercussions from that. But every player that ever played this game and will play this game, they're signing up for it.
When I look back, I didn't enjoy any of the big games. I didn't enjoy any of the finals. You enjoy lifting the trophy and the celebrations. But it was always the next game.
If you're manager, you're always responsible for the good times and the bad times. Every time you don't win a game you think if you could have done it another way.
If you ask any player, they will always say the same. They play to win.
I'm an avid bridge player. I usually go to the local bridge club three or four times a week. I've always been a game-player, and I think bridge is one of the greatest games ever invented. It's too bad that not many young people play it any more.
It's my opinion that a manager must have the right to manage and that clubs should not impose upon any manager any player that he does not want. I have been left with no choice other than to leave.
When you take off that sweater, your jersey, after today's game, you will be the last player in the NHL to ever wear 99. You have always been and you will always be 'The Great One,' and there will never be another.
My dad was always my manager as far as I was concerned, even when I had another manager. At times he let me go with someone else who he thought could take me to another level when he couldn't, and he was right. But they were in it for another reason. He was in it because he wanted to see me succeed no matter what, and he made decisions based on being a dad as opposed to a manager.
If you ask any referee before the game - they ask me if I have anything to say, I tell them 'I'm going straight up.' Every time. Every game. And they know that and they say I'm one of the best at it.
The likability of any player is always up for debate, and people will always use their own moral compass to judge Luis Suarez, but that's not something I tend to focus on. I concentrate on what he is like with me on a day-to-day basis, and he is a great man.
If any player has a bad game it's there in the back of your mind in the next game. There's always a hangover. It is like a wounded animal in a way, as you want to get out there as quick as possible and rectify it.
If any player has a bad game its there in the back of your mind in the next game. Theres always a hangover. It is like a wounded animal in a way, as you want to get out there as quick as possible and rectify it.
I have always been very calm on the outside. I'm not too stressed now just because I'm in formula one. For me, tomorrow will be another day whether I finish first or last. I have to do the maximum and I cannot ask any more from myself.