Playing so many important games in a prestigious competition like the Champions League, I have experience to call upon and I'm thankful for that. I hope the other players can feel more confident because of that. Of course we're facing a very tough tie; we know Juventus F.C. are the favourites, but sometimes excitement, desire, effort and bravery can overcome individual ability.
All of us at Juventus agreed Manchester United were the best side we met in the Champions League. They have so many talented young players and can only get better and better. Giggs is truly world class
Sir Alex Ferguson must be very high up on the list of greatest managers ever. Then there is Fabio Capello, and people forget how much Giovanni Trapattoni achieved at Inter and especially Juventus.
When, in 2005, there was an offer from Juventus, I was in the Bahamas. When I came back, Arsene said to me, 'There is an offer from Juve. What do you want to do?' I understood that he was saying, 'If you want to leave, leave.'
To those who call me a mercenary I say that I also had interest from abroad, where I would have earned more. I have chosen Milan because, in my head, there is the idea of repeating the course I had at Juventus, where we had started rebuilding, as in this case, and we came to the top.
When I was talking with Shanghai, I was talking to big clubs from Europe, as well. There was Atletico Madrid, who I almost joined. I liked them very much and what they were offering me at the time. There was also Juventus, Inter Milan, and AC Milan. I had some options.
It's true, I had a lot of offers from very good teams, but I decided Juventus because I think the project is very big, and they have very big aims, and I want to be a part of the big project here.
To be captain and win a lot at Juventus, to play for 20 years, to play in the World Cup, European Cup, I think I had a good career, no?
Before I went to Juventus, I made a final promise to the board at Barcelona. I said, 'You're going to miss me.' I didn't mean as a player. Barca have plenty of incredible players. What I meant was that they were going to miss my spirit.
At the start of my two years at Juventus, I had big plans for the club, but it turned out that the Intertoto Cup was the only medal in my desk drawer when finally they told me to pack my bags. We started the first season really well, and Conte was so important for me.
I played for Sampdoria and stayed there 15 years. Of course, I could have gone to Juventus, to AC Milan, to Inter Milan many times, but I preferred to remain because Sampdoria were my family, from the owners to the players.
If you go to Juventus, you want to go for longer than two years, and you want to win titles.
Really, the club is like a big family. The locker-room spirit is also similar to what I had experienced at Liverpool, but I really like it here at Juventus, because it's not just a set of champions. The sense of a team, the group, is strongly felt.
Ancelotti has managed a lot of big clubs, and I think he would do well at Madrid because Juventus, Milan, Chelsea, and Paris Saint-Germain are big clubs.
Juventus made a big offer for me, I think it was around €20 million. Stuttgart were thinking about it, but I was the one who declined. I thought it was better for me to stay there and grow as a player before making a big move.
Every player that comes at Juventus becomes better; every player that comes wins trophies.
There are Champions League matches that have really wowed me, like when I saw the final between Real Madrid and Juventus. There are plenty of other matches too, it's also something that motivates me.
I'm more experienced, I've won titles at Juventus. I've been playing with big players like when I started at Man United, of course. I came back. I've not come back from the Academy now; I went to play somewhere else, and I came back, I would say, as a person, as an adult.
I've turned down Barcelona, Inter Milan, Juventus and Manchester United to play here. I hope everyone already knows how much it means to me to play for Newcastle United.
Milan, Inter, Roma, Juventus, Lazio - all of the big Italian clubs would be nice, but my son has a lot of work to do to show himself off and demonstrate his talent. Let's take things slowly.
Ajax have a set model, a defined youth programme - Barcelona have one too, and Juventus. And Atletico Madrid do too. Real Madrid don't - because they alternate developing their own players with signing talent.
Since I left Juventus, which remains the strongest team in Italy, I never thought about playing for another Italian club. I'm just not thinking about it.
At Real Madrid, I did heading drills with Cristiano Ronaldo. You see him go up for headers, that spring and power - he is a real beast. At Juventus, I saw Fernando Llorente, how he finds space and directs his headers.
Buffon is fearless and has no obvious weaknesses. He has been outstanding for Juventus and was one of Italy's most important players at the 2006 World Cup finals in Germany, where they were victorious, but what is amazing is that he has been playing like that for years. He never seems to make a mistake.
When I left Ajax in 1999, I travelled to Liverpool and spoke to Houllier. I was shown around Anfield and also met with the chairman and a couple of the players. I thought about it, but when Juventus came to the table, I came to the conclusion that it would be a bigger challenge to play in Italy.
Polls are now even more meaningless than ever... there was the case of Ronnie O'Brien, the young footballer who incredibly found himself at Juventus, and even more incredibly found himself in the running to win an internet poll of the great club's greatest ever player. The curse ironically struck O'Brien a second time when he was at one point leading Time magazine's list of the Greatest People Of The 20th Century. The error in the polling was soon rectified and O'Brien, happily, is leading a highly successful career playing pro-football with FC Dallas in the American soccer league.
That's where I spent the biggest chunk of my career, having been at Juventus for ten years. That was the best thing that happened to me because it was where I got to know real football, at an ambitious club with ambitious players.
In the 1990s, we had seven great teams - Milan, Inter, Juventus, Parma, Lazio, Roma, Fiorentina. If you look at the players, they were great players, but there was some crazy investment, and some teams went bankrupt, like Parma and Lazio.
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