AAGS 2021

17 Yes, I believe that individual human beings are guided by the ego which is always a limiting factor. It has positive things because you want to do well and you want to be the best, but the ego stops you sometimes to go into something deeper than just me and the comparison with the others. It is to develop something together and I have always tried to go in what I call the ‘deeper me’, that means the consciousness of how we can win together, to dedicate to develop something together. At the same time, the ego and the fear are limiting factors. I have tried always to get that out of the system of the players to go into something deeper. That is just enjoyment. When we had an unbeaten season, the players discovered that and I’m grateful in my life for having seen that, but they took charge of a project and we just developed it together. They had their own way to play, and the results were only secondary. There was something deeper, something bigger. The heart did go for something much deeper than that and for having seen that driving to a game on the coach and just thinking “just play today, the results will come anyway”. You said, “The meaning of your life is football and sometimes I’m afraid of that”. What are you afraid of? I am dedicated only to one aspect of life, and you know, happiness is to be happy and content with the life you have. I must say I’m very happy but I’m lucid enough to look at the negative sides because the competition eats you slowly. Your life becomes one dimensional, in fact you only focus on results, how can I win the next game? You sacrifice many aspects. I say many times this is a job where you have to take your luggage from one day to the next and go to Asia, to South Africa, etc. and for this reason this is a job for single people. Within your new position as Chief of Global Development in FIFA which are the strategies you adopted? The most exciting I do is the educational part because I feel that when I was a young kid and in my village, there were no chance to become a football player. In one way my life is a little miracle, but I would say today, no matter where you’re born you have not the same chance. I would like personally to develop that aspect, to give every talent the same challenge in the world. That’s why I have developed a few departments. One is the analytical where we want to have the best analysis of the games, and we want to show that in the Arab Cup. Second, we have created a training center and we have created development scheme as well where we analyzed 205 countries about what is the strengths and the weaknesses of a country. You want to go inside the country and help them to develop football. I have another target of course that is on international match calendar. I feel the biggest responsibility for me is to develop the educational aspect of football all over the world. Less than a year away from now, Qatar will host the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022. What are your expectations? I would say it’s a very interesting World Cup in two aspects because it will be the most compact World Cup because it’s the first time during the entire world cup, we have a population in a very small space. So, if that is going well, it could really be something absolutely fantastic. At the same time, it’s the last time where will play only with 32 teams from all over the world where there are 211 federations. So, I would say it will be very, very interesting. I’ve been many times in Doha and I know that Qatar has prepared very, very well. I would say people would be surprised by the quality of his world cup. I’m convinced of that. You stated you watch football most days. What have you watched recently? What did you like? Yes. I like what I see. I would say football has become faster. Physiological qualities in the last 10 years, the pace, the power have developed as well. What I watched last night was Everton vs Liverpool and PSG vs Niece. I watch many games every day. Tonight, I will watch Arsenal, my club. Football at night for me, helps me to be motivated during the day.