Football has been my life and Real Madrid my home and together we have lived unique moments.

I've been fortunate enough to witness some of the biggest moments in football history mere yards away from the action, but I wanted to go out on a high rather than stay too long. I didn't want to get to the stage where people say, 'Oh blimey, Motty's lost it. He's getting the players wrong, and his voice is going.'

If you were asked to go on 'Mastermind,' what would your specialist subject be? I wouldn't have a clue what I could answer questions on. Birmingham City Football Club would be a start, I suppose, but with a hundred odd years of history, thousands of matches, players and incidents to recall, even access to Google would leave me struggling.

Because sanitation has so many effects across all aspects of development - it affects education, it affects health, it affects maternal mortality and infant mortality, it affects labor - it's all these things, so it becomes a political football. Nobody has full responsibility.

I always had a philosophy which I got from my father. He used to say, 'Listen. God gave to you the gift to play football. This is your gift from God. If you take care of your health, if you are in good shape all the time, with your gift from God no one will stop you, but you must be prepared.'

Football is my happiness.

When I was at Tech, no public school was ahead of us in graduation rates. We got our guys to compete in the classroom, and if they're competing in class and in football, that's an attitude they take into life.

Everybody wants you to do good things, but in a small town you pretty much graduate and get married. Mostly you marry, have children and go to their football games.

Football is about joy. It's about dribbling. I favour every idea that makes the game beautiful. Every good idea has to last.

I get up every morning and thank God for giving me the opportunity to play football.

There's no point in making predictions. It's not worth speculating because nothing is set in stone and things change all the time in football. Today there are opportunities that no one knows if they will come round again in the future.

In football, I have learned to forget the past, think about the present, and the future will come as it may - thinking about it would be a mistake.

The first thing I ever got my hands on was Andy Griffith's 'What It Was, Was Football.' I was fascinated with the fact that every syllable made it funny, and I would laugh even though I didn't know what any of it meant.

I grew up playing hockey and some football, and I always think about the first time you walk into the locker room on a new team. The cliques are looking at you funny, and you make one friend, but then they're trying to stab you in the back.

I think friendship in football is a massive part of the team.

One of my best friendships dwindled in the pub business - we still talk, but it challenged that friendship too much - and that taught me to go into football and find people that I can have good relations with but without being overly friendly.

I started to work when I was really young. For me, friendship is work, and work is friendship. Those who are next to me and that have been there for a long time are those who can work with me, play football with me, and go watch a film with me.

Everybody knows that Coutinho is a great footballer - here in England, they call him 'The Magician.' He made his decision to join Barcelona, but every time we meet and play for the Selecao, we have a good chat and maintain that friendship. He is an exceptional guy and one of the best friends football has given me.

Football is about sacrifice, dedication, a lot of work, and friendship off the pitch.

Men kick friendship around like a football, but it doesn't seem to crack. Women treat it like glass and it goes to pieces.

I watch a lot of football and you hardly ever see Premier League players go down with cramp. The fitness, the intensity of Premier League football is phenomenal.

Football shape is one thing, and then 'futbol' shape is a completely other thing. It's a whole other level of fitness that you have to work to maintain.

When I was younger, my food and fitness were less controlled - I just loved football.

I was OK in school, but I always missed a lot because I was playing so much. But if I'd stuck at it, I imagine that I'd be doing something financial or economical. Finance always attracted me, even though maths was always a bit of a love-hate relationship. I would have tried playing football, but I don't think I'd have made it.