As a goalkeeper, you always expect every team to give you nightmares.
Edwin van der Sar
It's always difficult if you're coming into a new club and new league, especially the English one. It's a very demanding one, can be a very tough one.
Personally, I would never criticise a player in public.
Jean Tigana wants to go to the top with Fulham, and I like that ambition.
Running a marathon is unlike anything I have done. You can recall all those bad weights sessions or the work you had to do in pre-season, but marathon running is worse than any of it, probably the hardest thing I have had to do in my entire life.
I share a special bond with Ajax. I think we are a special club. And we're known for our philosophy around the world.
I will miss football.
You have to get your motivation from within, and it doesn't matter if you lose in the quarters, the semis, or the final. You must want to have another chance of winning the trophy.
I think every player gives a bit extra when he sees that his manager is fighting, too.
You hope to bring your 'A Game' to any game, and of course you do in a final. You hope to bring experience, fitness, communication skills, motivational skills.
If you win, everyone asks what's your secret, when most of the time you did exactly the same in the ones you lost.
The Dutch league is not one of the strongest five leagues in the world, or even Europe, and that's why it is difficult to maintain.
I've been the captain at Ajax and once for the national team - it's nice and makes you an important player.
Off the field, Ronaldo was also focusing on everything extensively, such as resting up properly and strengthening his body. After training sessions, he would often work on his free-kicks and then come to me and say, 'Edwin, can you go in goal?'
Personally, I don't think about the things I have won but the things I have lost.
The leagues in the countries around us are probably more interesting and played at a higher level, but in general, we are happy with the way we have moved things forward with Ajax, together with Marc Overmars as technical director, to establish a squad that can compete at the highest level.
We need a solution for European football. You need to help smaller clubs in European competitions get the right distribution of money so they can invest in coaches and attract talent for the level they can play at.
If you go to Juventus, you want to go for longer than two years, and you want to win titles.
A lot of the guys who played in the 1995 final for Ajax had been there since the age of 12 or 13. Patrick Kluivert and Edgar Davids had been there from age seven or eight, so I had a lot of catching up to do.
I went to Fulham for the project they explained to me - but it didn't really work out. I might have been playing at a high level for the national team, but I was starting to miss those European nights and challenging for titles.
We want to bring our own players through. That is what people like about Ajax.
I'm just not very rock n' roll.
Ajax has always been about homegrown players developed in a small country.
It's great to have people talking about the club again, to reinvent and get to know Ajax again.
I get great respect from the United fans and the directors and the people who are there still when you go there. It is a very warm club, very comparable to Ajax, only they have grown internationally amazingly.
You try and learn from clubs where you have been or actions clubs are taking to grow in certain markets, and that, for myself, is also important.
At certain times, you start to - maybe not lose the faith - but just wonder how long it will take until someone picks me up. I was thinking, 'Is it just me? Do I think I'm better than any manager does?'
Diehards know what Ajax is about, but you always need a new following, and if you are not successful, it is difficult.
As a goalkeeper, I needed good players around me. I needed Nemanja Vidic, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Wayne Rooney. It's the same as a CEO.
You want to build your own team for the highest level, and that happens more with teams that stay together.
If you have a love for sport, everybody knows the success of Madrid in the '60s, Ajax in the '70s, Bayern Munich, and so on.
A lot of clubs have lost the perspective of what is a football club.
For us at Ajax, it is all about football.
I've never had the experience of 10 years at Unilever and five years at Coca Cola. But I'm not the marketing director who only wants 25 per cent a year on the revenues. In the old days, you sold something, and you would be happy. At Ajax, we thought we needed more from that than selling a seat and making five grand.
We accept that, in one way now, if you are 27, 28 and still playing for Ajax, you are probably not good enough for the top of Europe because players want to go to the top in Europe.
If I see something right, I say so.
I don't think there was a single United player from 2009 who could say he gave it everything and played well.
I signed for Ajax in 1989 when I was still at school.
I was in two successive European finals early in my career, so initially, you think that sort of thing is going to happen regularly. Then suddenly, it dries up, and before you know it, 13 years have passed before you get your next chance.
Sometimes I miss European football.
Every time I hear that Champions League song, it reminds me of hearing it for the first time in the old Olympic Stadium in Amsterdam.
I remember, when I was 24, I said 34 was going to be the limit I will play to. But as everyone says, the older you get, the longer you want to go on because it gives you so much satisfaction.
It's always best if you can leave with a good memory.
I accept that I didn't play very well in Italy for the two years. It was lower than my Ajax standard. I don't know why.
You know you're in for a tough time if you're trailing and the other teams are doing well.
Craven Cottage is a great stadium, really traditional, going through the rows of houses until a stadium suddenly appears.
I always said I wanted to finish my career back at Ajax, but I didn't think I was going to play for so long at such a high level, so that's not going to happen now.
Of course that's Ajax development, giving young players a chance.
When you see Sir Alex arguing with referees and linesmen, he is showing passion that has taken him to the very highest level of the game.
When I see the kind of passion Sir Alex shows, it is hard to believe he is about to celebrate his 71st birthday.
