Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I always think British films work best when they're very honest to a particular part of England. 'Four Weddings and a Funeral' was true to middle-class people, 'Bend it Like Beckham' was faithful to the Indian community, and 'Billy Elliot' was faithful to the miners.
There have been times when I've reflected on my international career and just thought: 'Well that was a massive waste of time.' Sorry for sounding sour, but my best mate, David Beckham, got butchered after the World Cup in 1998, then my brother, Phil, after Euro 2000.
During the Sir Alex Ferguson years, you would see all those great players - Roy Keane, Paul Scholes, David Beckham, Ryan Giggs, Jaap Stam, Ruud van Nistelrooy and Cristiano Ronaldo, to name just a few - and you'd quickly realise why Old Trafford had an aura like nowhere else.
Even all the top players going to Europe to play helps soccer in America, as do all the MLS players like Beckham and all that, they're trying to promote it. At the end of the day it's about getting the younger generation interested at an early age so most of them will move on and play.
When I first came to England I hated football and knew nothing about it. Watching 0-0s and 1-0s having come from Aussie Rules was just dull. The only player I had heard of was David Beckham. But when I was living in Leicester I started watching Match of the Day and really got into Chelsea.
The United States is where I want to finish. I love the States. I want to have a subscription to NBA and go with my children to every game. I can already see myself there. I do not yet know the city, but why not play for Beckham's franchise in Miami? Playing under Beckham would be the best.
When I was a kid and my dad was playing for Man United, I used to stand behind the goal watching Eric Cantona, David Beckham, Paul Scholes, Mark Hughes, Andrei Kanchelskis, Ryan Giggs... and I used to try to save all their shots that went wide, imagining I was deciding the title for United.
I remember watching David Beckham scoring that free-kick at Old Trafford to take England to a World Cup. Things like that stick with you. I was at Southsea, waiting to board a hovercraft for the Isle of Wight. We ended up missing it because we were more interested in watching the big screen.
I like to use the analogy of going to the gym. If you go to the gym and your goal is, 'I want to look just like David Beckham,' then that drives you to do certain things. You may never look like Beckham, but it is a goal. Cities need the same thing. They need a vision and a plan for their ideal physique.
David Beckham is a patriot, and I am sure he will help in any way he can. Beckham needs to be part of any future plans to remould the England set-up. Beckham and players like him need to be integrated into the set-up in the same way that the Germans take on board former players from Beckenbauer to Rummenigge.
I saw 'Billy Elliot' again, and what I loved about it was the way it had become a social document, a reminder of what happened with the mining communities in the '80s. And I thought, 'Everyone keeps wanting me to make a sequel to 'Beckham,' but maybe a musical remake is the answer, embracing all this theatricality.'
There is already good organisation at Chelsea, but at Milan, it was about prevention rather than treatment. We want to integrate some of the things we had at Milan here. Some people are surprised when they hear that we solved David Beckham's back problem by fixing his teeth, for example, but we will look at everything.
I know what it's like to fight against the crowd from when I went to Denmark to fight Mikkel Kessler. He's like David Beckham over there, he gets blanket coverage in the papers all week, and you could hear a pin drop when I was landing my shots. There was no respect for The Cobra out there. There was no noise, no love, nothing.
