A lot of teams who go on to win trophies lose in quarter-finals or semi-finals first.
Finishing second and getting in the Champions' League quarter-finals or semi-finals is fine, but at the end of the day you need to take some silverware.
Success breeds success and the more you are around a healthy and thriving athletics team, the more the people who only think they can make semi-finals will be inspired to want to aim for finals and go for medals.
Athletes like me, PT Usha, Anju Bobby Gerorge have reached finals in Olympics, and it's not easy to reach the finals. If Indians were genetically inferior then we wouldn't have reached even finals.
When you are winning and go to finals, you want to win the finals.
It was a tough year for me, '89, losing two Slam finals and losing another five finals. It wasn't until I won the Masters, or what's now called the ATP Finals, that things changed again. Suddenly I won seven tournaments in 1990 and became No. 1.
I won three FA Cup finals, two League Cup finals, and played in one of United's two Champions League-winning finals. But I lost in a lot of finals, too: the FA Cup in 1995, 2005 and 2007, the League Cup in 2003, and the Champions League in 2009 and 2011.
It's disappointing to lose a game with the chance to go into the semi-finals of the Champions League.
I get this call and they go, you know, 'Do you want to do the finals?' and I go, 'Yeah, I guess, I've never, never done the finals.' Especially for somebody who's done as many thousands of games as I have, it kind of takes you one step further.
My confidence is not in man, it's in God, and so I look forward to the semi-finals with that in mind, absent of fear.
I think that France, Germany, Spain, Holland and England will join Brazil in the semi-finals.
The Davis Cup should be home and away from the semi-finals as a minimum, I would say even the quarters.
Well, of course you question it, especially when you get to this point. I always look at it would I rather not make the playoffs or lose in The Finals? I don't know. I don't know. I've missed the playoffs twice. I lost in The Finals four times. I'm almost starting to be like I'd rather not even make the playoffs than to lose in The Finals. It would hurt a lot easier if I just didn't make the playoffs and I didn't have a shot at it.
The play-offs are a great occasion to be involved in; the semi-finals were amazing. When you're in it it's special and you do enjoy it but if you are in it, you have to win it. It's a lot of pressure.
In the Finals, you want to set a statement like, 'This is me. This is who I am.' You know everyone's watching.