The World Cup tournament overall and, naturally, the new stadiums at its heart, are the ideal platform to portray Germany as a positive and exceptional location, and above all of course, as a highly capable economic location.

We should not fool ourselves. We are not one of the world's top teams any more.

The trouble for today's footballers is they have too many distractions. We used to get our old players coming to watch training with football magazines in their hands. Now, more often than not, they are checking the share prices.

For example, Michael Jordan earns $100million a year but continues to play basketball and remains a modest human being.

The World Cup tournament overall and, naturally, the new stadiums at its heart, are the ideal platform to portray Germany as a positive and exceptional location, and above all of course, as a highly capable economic location.

At the World Cup and even now at the Confederations Cup, our security provisions will ensure the greatest level of protection possible for all those participating - both inside and outside the stadiums.

Since Sven Goran Eriksson took over, England have been fantastic.

The two designs are completely different. The first is totally futuristic, the second is more classical. You can of course get very excited about doing something completely out of the ordinary, just like the Olympic stadium in its time. But each to his or her own taste.

Back then, a half-a-century ago, the situation was totally different. Economically, we were practically on our knees, and politically, we were still excluded from the community of nations. Today, in this respect, we have a totally different and much more stable basis.

The Olympic stadium may have been built only in the early 1970s but it was clear for a long time it had no future. For many reasons it is not good enough for modern football and today's fans.

At least six Bayern players, who have won almost everything, are in the national squad.

We are the last remaining country to allow ourselves two breaks in the season. You just have to look at England, Italy and Spain, they play right through the season. We on the other hand take six weeks off in the winter until the end of January, and that is a luxury.

At any rate, I can only see such a success having positive effects for everyone, particularly as our anticipation of the World cup would only increase further.

It would make me a lot happier if I could meet up again next year with as many friends as possible from all over the world who I've met during my career. That's where the great opportunity lies, for me personally, in our role as World Cup host.

Certainly it is a different world for players nowadays. But it depends on the individual.

The most important thing however is the money. What use would it be to us, to have a a mighty stadium but a useless team, because we couldn't afford anything better?

German football is like English football. The Germans and the English do not play like a Brazilian side. They have to improve, bring up their young players, who have character.

I kept my speeches short as captain. I focused on the key points of the opposition of the day. As coach, I was never afraid to give long speeches to the players throughout our preparations. It was important they had all the information possible.

If a Middle Eastern sheikh comes to buy Bayern Munich, he could buy 49 per cent. Fifty-one per cent must stay in Germany with the club. That law came about because of the developments of international football.

In the World Cup, much depends for every team on how it develops during the tournament. There are always rising tensions. They come from within, and they come from the media.

Rugby is a different game. There is an interruption every two minutes also in American football. Our soccer is a moving game: play, play, play, move, move - you don't interrupt.

The two designs are completely different. The first is totally futuristic the second is more classical. You can of course get very excited about doing something completely out of the ordinary just like the Olympic stadium in its time. But each to his or her own taste.

The new Germany has the unquestionable right to hold its tongue between its teeth.

I think this could be our best victory over Germany since the war.

If the British Fleet were lost or captured, the Atlantic might be dominated by Germany, a power hostile to our way of life, controlling in that event most of the ships and shipbuilding facilities of Europe.

Most of the victims of Nazi aggression were before the war less well off than Germany. They should not be expected by Germany to bear, unaided, the major costs of Nazi aggression.

Altogether apart from that, it would be a disgrace to us to make this bargain with Germany at the expense of France, a disgrace from which the good name of this country would never recover.

Just as a child respects his father even when he perceives his weaknesses and faults, so a German will not despise the old Germany which was once a symbol of greatness to him.

I also work with the regular orchestras in Munich, Germany and other similar orchestras.

Hitler's economic revolution in Germany had reduced financial considerations to a point where they played no role in economic or political decisions.

The biggest trade that Germany and Britain had was with each other, in the prewar period; I think I'm right in that. Two highly industrialized nations had the most trade with each other, and it wasn't tariff policies alone that made trade relations better for both of them.

This old Germany was partly defeated in its conflict with the progressive ideas of socialism, for it had given the people nothing that could serve as a successful alternative to socialism.

It was one thing to contain the Soviet Union in Europe because Britain, France, and Germany were all willing to join in. But will Japan and other Asian countries be willing to join in the containment of China?

I was a star in Italy, Austrailia, Germany and Japan before the American stations ever paid attention at all.

The role of Italy and of Austria has diminished as has that of France and Britain; Germany and Japan have suffered catastrophically.

The SA is, and remains, Germany's destiny.

It is important to remember that some of the most serious thinkers once thought that democracy was not compatible with the cultures of Germany, Italy, Japan, Latin America and Russia.

I love Germany so dearly that I hope there will always be two of them.

We... our war began September the 3rd 1939, with the invasion of Poland by Germany, and thereafter the great state of danger in England at that time, with the bombings, necessitated the evacuation of children.

There are writers in Germany who drink the Absolute like water; and there are books in which even the dogs make references to the Infinite.

I was the very first athlete in East Germany allowed to go professional.

It was fear. He didn't want to see a united Germany. Stalin made it clear to me - I spoke with him many times - that they couldn't afford to let Germany build up again. They'd been invaded twice, and he wasn't willing to have it happen again.

I was signed when I was 19 years old, in 1980. I went to Germany and France. Seeing the world at that time was just an awesome experience for a teenager.

We favor the economic unification of Germany. If complete unification cannot be secured, we shall do everything in our power to secure the maximum possible unification.

And so we went away to play, and we'd come back to Liverpool. And while we were doing this - 'cuz we did it for two years. And then we'd go to Germany, and that's where I met the Beatles.

We wanted to bring the political situation in Austria on stage. Naturally we could not do that without pointing to Austrian's northern neighbor Germany.

I got to go to Malaysia, Germany, Switzerland, Madrid, America.

Despite this lamentable lack of balance in our education I do not believe that either children or adults in my country are permeated by a widespread hostility to Germany.

We are Christians by the same title as we are natives of Perigord or Germany.