There is a lot of luck in football. Following England is like following Wycombe Wanders or Leyton Orient. You hope for the best and hope you are lucky.
Football is a whole skill to itself. A whole world. A whole universe to itself. Me love it because you have to be skilful to play it! Freedom! Football is freedom.
The way to be successful is through preparation. It doesn't just happen. You don't wake up one day and discover you're a lawyer any more than you wake up as a pro football player. It takes time.
Without defeats, how do you really know who the hell you are? If you never had to stand up to something - to get up, to be knocked down, and to get up again - life can walk over you wearing football cleats. But each time you do get up, you're bigger, taller, finer, more beautiful, more kind, more understanding, more loving. Each time you get up, you're more inclusive. More people can stand under your umbrella.
The game of business used to be like football: size mattered. Then it changed to basketball: speed and agility. Today, business is more like chess. Customer priorities change continually, and the signals given by these changes are vital clues to the next cycle of growth.
At 15, 16, you think you're going to be captain of England. But I realised it wasn't going to happen for me on a windy November night in Darlington, coming to my peak at the age of 23 but still playing for Mansfield Town.
I think if Tottenham are going to be top four side, the fans and the club will need to get away from the philosophy of 'pretty football', that's got to go.
Speed is what makes the Premiership exciting. The millions who would have watched Manchester United and Chelsea would have seen a non-stop game in which the pace was electric even though the first half was a non-event. You could see a better technical game in Spain but for sheer frenetic movement there is nothing that comes close... Pace is more critical in the Premiership than in any other major league and if you don't have pace, you have to compensate with power or ability in the air and since Shevchenko has no power and is not particularly good in the air, he is in trouble.