We were the best team in the world: European champions in 1984, we qualified without a hitch and 86 was to be the swan song for a very experienced side.

For me, football is just a game, not a drama.

I gave everything in my career so I have no regrets at all.

I was the classic midfield organiser who could also score goals.

During such a competition players are there for a long time as well as all the people around them. They need to train, to eat, to go out. There ought to be something in it for everyone. On that particular point, my experience has been a bonus.

The team which I led to the 1992 European Championship Finals is the only one in the history of the entire competition to have won every single one of its qualifying matches.

Some games you win, some you lose, and some you draw.

Consequently, I won just about everything I set out to win, everything bar the World Cup, of course. But even now, I don't regret that, because I was part of a team which twice reached the semi-finals.

We arrived in Argentina with a lot of injured players, including our goalkeeper. Also we were unlucky to be drawn in the same group as the two tournament favourites Italy and Argentina.

At times like that it's difficult to remember what's at stake, that history is in the making. As a player you feel so cut off sometimes, it can be tough... Which is why it is an enormous advantage to play at home.

The match against Brazil was football at its best. Both sides had opportunities to win the game.

What differences were there between Maradona and Platini?

We were the best team in the world: European champions in 1984, we qualified without a hitch and 86 was to be the swan song for a very experienced side.

In any case, you can't turn back the clock.

The 1984 European Championships were held in France and that was something important. I felt on form then, even though I was practically always injured at all the World Cups. It's a great memory. But in any case, the past is past.

I was never a prisoner to my footballing status.

For me football is more about making the right pass at the right time.

At Euro '92 itself, we bowed out to the eventual winners, Denmark, in our final group match.

When I follow the finals of the European Cups, I look at all the aspects surrounding protocol, to get some ideas. I am interested in personalities, sponsors and the stands. But as soon as the whistle goes, it's all on the pitch.

There would probably be less of a frenzy among the French public.

In 1986, we gave it our best shot but we didn't get the run of the ball.

Whenever I was on the pitch, I always tried to win.

You know, my role as Vice Chairman is a lot less tiring than playing matches every three days.

I was playing the best football of my career at the time, finishing top scorer in Italy three year's running. There were other good players around but I think I was the best at that time.

A football team represents a way of being a culture.

I just wrote one song at a time. Kinda like an alcoholic. One day at a time.

Then, in that hour of deliverance, my heart spoke. Does not such a country, and such defenders of their country, deserve a song?

If you give it good concentration, good energy, good heart and good performance, the song will play you.

But in the finished art of the song the use of words has no connection with the use of words in poetry.

I guess a good song is a good song is a good song, ya know.

In the past 3-4 years I've developed a habit of keeping numerous small cassette recorders in my house and in a bag with me so that I'm able to commit to tape memory song ideas on a constant basis.

I don't ask for the meaning of the song of a bird or the rising of the sun on a misty morning. There they are, and they are beautiful.

The band set up in January and just started rehearsing. If there was a song, we'd just rehearse it as a band, and it would get arranged as a band, and it got changed around a lot.

Peace Train is a song I wrote, the message of which continues to breeze thunderously through the hearts of millions of human beings.

I love listening to Radio Head's 'Everything in its Right Place' because it's all major chords, it makes you feel really good. It's soothing, it's got a beautiful voice, crazy textures. When I'm down I listen to that song and it really makes me feel good.

I've always wanted to sing, just as I've always known that one day I would have my own niche in the annals of song. It was a feeling I had.

I have eighteen titles in the German language. I had a number one song in 1965.

Listen kid, take my advice, never hate a song that has sold half a million copies.

There's a lot of rage... you have to express it somehow. If I didn't express it in song, I'd become incredibly violent.

I do not mind having written the song at all. I just wish that I had written it in a different key, as the high d is hard to play. I am glad that I wrote something that brought joy to millions of people.

It's like, it's up to the people to fall in love with the song. The record company can only do so much.

People assume that the meaning of a song is vested in the lyrics. To me, that has never been the case. There are very few songs that I can think of where I remember the words.

I guess you could write a good song if your heart hadn't been broken, but I don't know of anyone whose heart hasn't been broken.

A song has to become as much a part of you as a tailored suit.

A so-called happy marriage corresponds to love as a correct poem to an improvised song.

Most musicians count at the beginning, and never count and talk to their musicians after that. They only talk to them at the end of the song. But I would count with them and talk.

In an age of incompetence, I've been able to last in this crazy business. I actually know how to play my ax and write a song. That's my job.

The only thing that's a little tricky about it is sometimes people assume that if it's a new song, it's a reflection of what you're feeling or going through now.

When I write a song, it's all about the riff - the riff first, then the words come later.