Once you're a football player, you're a football player for life. You always think of yourself in terms of that. We all do. It's hard to get rid of when you can't play anymore.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Often there are players who have only football as a way of expressing themselves and never develop other interests. And when they no longer play football, they no longer do anything; they no longer exist, or rather they have the sensation of no longer existing.
In this case, I realize that, unlike when I was 22 years old, I realize now that football will not go on forever, it is a small part of your life.
Playing football was like being trapped in a rhythm, and my whole career was like that. You have very little time to switch off.
Every player feels differently about playing football. We are all different people. I am the type who wants to win all the time. I hate to lose.
Playing professional football is something I'll never be able to do.
I've let a lot of things go, and obviously football is one of them. I think the hardest thing to let go is your self-image. That's what I'm working on now.
When you're playing football, and your enemies are there, you don't have a lot of time to think to yourself. You've got stuff to handle. You've got places to be, meetings to go to, bigger fish to fry. You really don't attack the emotional side of your life.
In hindsight, that time out of football gives you the hunger to want to get back to basics and play football.
I'm not even thinking about going back to play football at all. My mind's made up. I'm done.
Don't walk through life just playing football. Don't walk through life just being an athlete. Athletics will fade. Character and integrity and really making an impact on someone's life, that's the ultimate vision, that's the ultimate goal - bottom line.