Jaap Stam

It's football, you work with humans and humans make mistakes. We will do everything in our power to prepare the players so they know to make the right decision at the right times.

I want to reach something with a team and go to the highest level.

It is important for me to believe in a team that has ambition. I want to go up and work towards something. I don't want to work in the grey areas and say it is nice to end up 10th or 11th and keep on doing that every year.

Far too often English players seem determined to keep running after getting a whack on the leg, even though the chance to get a shot in has gone.

It's tricky for me to take a dive, though. If I fall down under the slightest kick, I'm going to look stupid falling down like I've been shot.

Players from Holland and Scandinavia aren't divers, but those from Spain and Italy go down far too easily for my liking.

All of Europe's biggest clubs place the Champions' League as their top priority these days but only one of us can lift the trophy. The domestic league titles are still crucial of course, but I think most players will tell you the Champions' League is the one they want to win most of all.

I've been with clubs who won the league championships in Holland and England, which was brilliant, and to win the Champions League with Manchester United was an amazing experience.

In Holland you go into amateur teams, come up through the ranks and are generally spotted for senior or professional football. At 16, I had made it into a men's amateur team, and was picked up professionally from there.

It was a great time working at Reading, especially the first season getting very close to going to the Premier League.

For me, a late start was a good thing. A lot of kids who start too early get bored. I'd done all the things I wanted to do, I'd enjoyed myself, having fun and playing as an amateur and that was important.

I always watched professional football and my father played at an amateur level, but I didn't think I wanted to become a pro.

In Serie A players have to stay in a hotel before a home game to ensure proper preparations without the distractions a wife and family can bring. It's a system which no doubt suits some players, but would not be my choice.

Look, when I was working on a project at school, I had the urge to do that well. And if I'm fixing something up at home or whatever, making something, I want to do that well too. If I'm hanging a lamp and it doesn't work, nobody can talk to me for an hour, almost. And with football I have that urge and that will to win. With all sports.

It wasn't until I was about 16 that I began to grow and develop as a player.

I don't regret writing my book at all. I wrote it for the United supporters to give them a proper insight into what it is like inside the club, and what it is like to be a Manchester United player. I think I did that in an honest way.

It sounds strange, maybe, because I have played with a lot of big players but I never thought: 'OK, they're going to go into management.' Maybe there was only one, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, because he was always talking about football but I did not have a feeling with the other players.

As a manager, you need to have your own vision and what you want to do with the team.

I was actually quite small when I was young. No one believes me now, but I have pictures at home.

As a defender it can also be more frustrating to play in Italy because referees do not tolerate too much physical contact. I loved the physical nature of the game in England, but in Serie A I only have to look at a player and they sometimes fall to the floor!