Per Mertesacker

You always have to remain professional. I have always done so.

I was lucky to get a professional contract. I wasn't that sort of talent that is considered to be a professional player.

We have all the money in the world but do not realise how important the body is. A player on average has a seven year professional career, 10-15 if everything goes right. You have to do everything possible to be at your maximum.

In the moments before a game starts my stomach turns around as if I had to vomit. Then I have to choke so violently until my eyes tear.

The amount of staff we have in academies is... I've never seen anything like it. It's good to take care of the players but sometimes I get confused by the number of people who have an impact on one kid - we're talking 100 people or more. It's quite a heavy load.

It is an important part of the role of a centre-back to focus on building up the game and initiating moves.

Being in a career and going from highlight to highlight and playing a lot of matches you go through it and think it's normal when you play in front of 60,000 and you almost want to vomit in front of every game.

Never tackle, never go down, we've heard it over and over again. You have to try to keep Messi away from the goal and block him with multiple players while being as close to him as possible. He is too quick, too fast, too intense with the ball.

The first time in my career I thought it makes no sense anymore, that I'll retire.

I was extremely lucky with my career and I want to finish on a high.

Moving to London enables me to fulfil a dream and a further step in my career. The Premier League has always represented a great challenge for me.

In certain situations, players should protect themselves by not losing track of the most important things in their job.