Marcel Desailly
Playing football helped me to gain self-discipline, confidence, negotiation skills, teamwork and leadership.Collection: Leadership
Zidane is a top player and he knows that if players do not perform, there needs to be a little bit of silence and hard work.
At 36, as soon as you have an injury, then it is difficult to overcome.
In 2002 we went into the first World Cup in Asia as reigning champions and we had also added the European crown in 2000, playing better football and with more confidence in our ability.
Honestly when you look at football when Sepp Blatter was made FIFA president in 1998, the global budget for the World Cup in France, or South Korea and Japan, Germany etc. He has really boosted the interests of football across the world.
I nearly signed for Monaco because it was a more stable club. My family were in favour of Monaco. At Marseille everything is more crazy and there's a lot more pressure. But that's what appealed to me.
I need the pressure of a big challenge.
Signing for Marseille was a dream come true. Everything that happened to me afterwards was magic.
I got professional from 18, 19 years of age, and I got my opportunity to join the French national team, so there was no choice to even consider.
When I was a soccer player, I already had the idea and vision to come back to Ghana and settle and develop sports infrastructure.
I believe that Lampard has helped Giroud shine often by getting a lot out of him but he can't be the first choice for Lampard.
Giroud is the perfect team-mate and player for the France national team.
Mbappe can play down the middle but he is the world champion from being out wide.
Everyone wants a player like Pogba.
We need to understand and to trust the fact that every single time Abramovich or the management of Chelsea have been able to get the correct coach to go for victory.
It is a pleasure playing in a big competition at home.
Nobody resembles me, because now they're much more technical. The way they use the ball, the ability and the skills, is much more accurate.
I was a heavyweight in the football world. You don't have of the type of players that I was anymore.
Baba Rahman should not give up. I think he has the level to be at Chelsea as a first choice, so he should try more.
For me, Aubameyang will be the best player to adapt to the Conte system.
I have not been a skilful, talented player.
In football you have to be lucky. I'm a lucky man.
I've been a serious player all my life in my diet, sleeping, everything, but the luck of coming to clubs that win is also important.
Out of 100, Marseille was 40 and Milan was 100. It's that simple. Organisation, the stadium, 82,000 people in the San Siro for every match, Milanello, the training camp, the food, the dress, Milan is the fashion city of the world, the international exposure that I experienced; it's a different world.
Football is both complicated and simple at the same time.
To win a second World Cup is super tough - just look at Spain in 2014 and Germany in Russia, like us knocked out in the group phase.
It is possible to make a slow start and still win it - look at Spain in 2010, beaten by Switzerland in their first match but world champions a few weeks later.
I'm not like those who moan about having little teams at these competitions - for me that's what the World Cup is all about.
In modern football all the teams are capable of getting organised and causing problems. The underdogs are not scared any more.
I remember we had a terrible start to the 2002 World Cup, losing to Senegal when we were the reigning world and European champions.
Smaller nations now believe in their capacity to cause problems and to challenge the traditional powers of world football.
Playing a World Cup on home soil, getting to the final and then winning it - it doesn't get any bigger or any better than that.
Sometimes a game plan comes off and it can be as simple as that!
As far as penalties are concerned, you have to be used to taking them and you have to be confident.
With Didier we'd started out together at Nantes, won the Champions League at Marseille and stayed in touch when he was with Juventus and me with Milan.
It feels as if I have known Didier Deschamps all my life.
It is much tougher than people might think for a former player to become a coach, a manager - at least a very successful one.
Didier was always mature for his age. You might find it hard to believe now because he is not the biggest guy around, but when he was a young teenager he was actually physically ahead of most of his generation. We caught up with him, of course, and then most of us overtook him.
Didier was always a leader but a leader through the collective. He has always known how to gee his teammates up and help get the best out of them.
Playing against your club team-mate for an international match, or vice versa, is a rather strange situation to find yourself in.
By leading Les Bleus to a second triumph, 20 years after being our captain when we won the World Cup in France, Didier became only the third man to have won the competition as both player and manager.
One thing's for sure - Africa needs to have its best teams at the World Cup.
Any team that wins a competition will celebrate, of course, there's nothing more normal.
It's much easier to fight for your teammates when you get on well with them, when there is harmony in the squad.
At the same age, I would say Thierry did not have the same ability as Mbappe but he had intelligence, brain and the desire to become the best.
I remember Henry left Monaco for Juventus and that it didn't really work out for him. He made the right choice to join Arsenal and find a manager who would help bring out the best in him. That's why choices are so important.
Mbappe needs time and we mustn't rush him. But I have great faith in his ability to succeed because I can see the work he puts in for the collective. He offers solutions with his runs, his willingness to make himself available and even take knocks for the team.
One of Didier's great qualities is the way he controls his squad. He's the boss.
I'm a great believer in sport as a vector for change.
Mbappe and Dembele have shown they are ready to perform for their nation.