Zanetti: "I help Inter both on the pitch and in marketing and social initiatives. Talent is not enough"

"Everyone asks me what the secret is because I'm the same as I was 30 years ago. Honestly, I live day by day. Everything I do, I do with passion. I always train, every day if I can. What do I miss about football? What I miss most is training and being with my team-mates. I train because it makes me feel good. I play padel for fun, but I treat it like training. Everything I do is based on a healthy lifestyle, I try to give everything in everything I do. When we go on holiday I joke with my wife. I said, "Listen, let's go anywhere, you choose". As long as there's a gym".

"I won the Champions League at 37, it was my last opportunity. I kept playing because I felt good. I am turning 39, it is the only serious injury of my career, when I ruptured my Achilles tendon. Everyone there thought, 'OK, and he stops playing because at 39 how can he recover?' I did not want to end my career that way, I still wanted at least to play another match in front of my fans at San Siro and then yes, I recovered in record time, five and a half months, and I was already back on the pitch.

An injury that normally takes at least eight months. I came on with 10 minutes left in a match, I felt good, the match ended. While I was having a shower it was the first moment I said this is my last season. I could have carried on because I was turning 40, I felt good enough to continue, but I always told myself it was better to stop while you are still feeling good"

"When I stopped playing, Inter told me: ‘Look, we want you to become vice-president, because for us it is an important role’. I was absolutely delighted because this bond with the club was continuing, but at the same time I thought: ‘Vice-president of Inter, great responsibility, I need to prepare myself’.

For 25 years, I went from training on the pitch with my team-mates to sitting in a meeting with ten managers speaking English about finance and marketing. I started studying and I am still studying at Bocconi University, because I found a professor who put together a programme for me that helped me enormously. This is the advice I can give young people: don't wait until the end"

"The vision you have as a footballer is very different from the one you have as an executive. When I was with my team-mates I couldn't understand many things because I needed to know them. That's why I believe studying has helped me enormously and opened my mind.

I want to be an executive who is not only tied to the sporting side, but who can also be useful in marketing, in social initiatives and in all the projects we have to help our club grow.

Everyone wants to be a coach, but it's not so straightforward. Even if you were a great player, it doesn't necessarily mean you can then be a great coach. There too you have to prepare yourself. But by preparing yourself, you start to discover so many alternatives and then choose where you feel most comfortable. No. Talent alone is not enough. Talent has to be nurtured every day, you have to train it."

"I think the mental side needs even more attention. People are starting to give it the importance it deserves, but in my opinion it still isn't enough. At Inter we have people in place who also look after that side of things, because we have understood that it is very important.

Everyone thinks players are machines: they train, play and have to always be at 100 per cent. But that is not always the case. A lot of things in a person's private life can affect performance. That's where we have to be careful and work."