I was into basketball, football, karate, boxing.
One hundred religious persons knit into a unity by careful organizations do not constitute a church any more than eleven dead men make a football team. The first requisite is life, always.
As long as I can run fast, track will always be an option. But right now I'm focused on football because the NFL is knocking on my door and I'm not going to slam it in its face.
Maybe if I was born in Kosovo, I might not be where I am now, so I need to thank Switzerland, of course, because I went to school there, learnt to play football there, and started my career there.
I'm just a normal young lad who plays football.
The kit man is the heartbeat of the football club, really. He knows the lads. He's usually local, a fan, and he's got his finger on the pulse of the dressing room.
I used to play football with a load of lads, and I would be like a secret agent going out with a hat on so they wouldn't see my hair in a bun.
I would have been about seven years old when the formative years of my competitive football education began. I was playing in the local leagues around Manchester, playing against lads from tough areas who had been taught they had to fight for everything.
We're hoping that there is large-scale recognition that CTE is a risk when playing football.
I feel like, in football, you always have to prove yourself as well. The past is in the past. Last season was last season.
Playing for 14 years definitely took its toll mentally. I decided when I was playing my last season that when I retired from football I would never go back into it, and I've never regretted that decision.
Wouldn't it be great if our national news media had standards as high as the National Football League's?
When I was growing up, there weren't any Little Leagues in the city. Parents worked all the time. They didn't have time to take their kids out to play baseball and football.
I was at Leeds Carnegie, the ninth tier. And I was coaching students. There would have been hundreds of managers with more experience. So I had to go to the fourth tier of Swedish football, pretty much in the Arctic circle.
I played football for Leeds United under-18s, but at 17 my eyes started to go and I had to wear glasses. The football had to go - there were no contact lenses in 1957.
At Leeds, it was to stay up. I was such a young player, Leeds were my club, and we didn't do it. That was a lot to take. At Newcastle, the expectations to win a trophy were enormous. The No. 1 thing everyone up there thinks about is the football club.
The good thing is I don't put the ball in my right hand and I'm predominantly left-handed when I'm running the ball. I just have to take care of the football and even if I have two hands that are 100 percent, I still can't turn the ball over. It's just something I have to mentally prepare for, and I think I'm strong enough to do that.
Leo Messi is a little football God. I love playing alongside him. We understand each other without needing to talk.
Where the costs of entry are minimal, there is a wide avenue of opportunity for those with little or nothing, which is why football is just about the most democratic sport of all: African and Brazilian footballers compete on a level playing field with their rich white European counterparts.
I think that being confident gives you more freedom. It liberates you, helps you have the courage to do things on the football pitch.
