After the 2006 World Cup, I knew that you don't always need success, success, success on the pitch.

Complaining and arguing will not help. We are fully concentrating on the game against the Czechs.

I would never have thought I was capable of sitting on the bench as the number two man. And it showed me that you can really achieve everything in life, even the unthinkable, as long as you're willing to work on yourself a little bit.

If we perform as a unit and if every single player gives it his very best, everything can happen.

It looked pretty wild, but I was actually in control of myself. I've never really injured anyone throughout my career.

I was so obsessed with football that you could say I was taking the goal home with me at night. And then one day the system fell apart.

It took me a long time to realize that football isn't martyrdom, but a game that's enjoyable, and one in which getting better at it is supposed to be fun. Perhaps it would have been better if I had understood this as a young man.