A biography for Per Mertesackerhasn’t been written yet.
“Some days you realise that everything is a burden, both physically and mentally. That it's not about fun, but you have to deliver without a doubt. Even if you are injured.”
“Things can change very fast in football.”
“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.”
“My father said, 'You're not going to make it.' That took a lot of pressure from me. I took football like a hobby.”
“It is not only the skilful players who can make the difference in a game. It is as well players who just try to stick to their qualities and give absolutely everything.”
“At Arsenal you are replaceable so quickly as a player, I don't want to stand in someone's way.”
“If there is a really good player at U16 level who disrespects the coach, if you then say: 'You can go somewhere else then. That is not how we do things here.' That would be powerful.”
“There are still so many issues around young players, and we need to find the right way for them. What is really important? What does he need for his self-belief? For his development?”
“That's why I kept going with my school - I wasn't talented. That's what's the difficulty - you want to define key talents when they are 12, 13 or 14? When I was that age I was nowhere near. People had given up on me.”
“Arsene Wenger was always the kind of manager whose belief in his team's qualities was steady as a rock and who approached matters with never-ending patience.”
“I want players to think: 'OK, this has happened now, what is next for me?' That's a very big target because what are academies about nowadays? Is it really just to find one or two players? But what happened to the others? I'm very, very interested in that.”
“When I played for Hannover I had several offers, also - as I have been told - from Hamburg, Bremen and Bayern. Back then I already was a German international and Bayern would have loved to have the complete German national team.”
“The main thing for me was that I wanted to be able to decide when my international career would end after 10 years myself.”
“Even when you are experienced, sometimes mistakes happen.”
“I've played for 15 years and played in five major tournaments. I know what it gives me in terms of the joy, in terms of the love for the game. But I'm done with it.”
“There are not a lot of German players out there who are successful in a foreign country.”
“When I was young and visited England with my auntie, as somebody who was football crazy, I simply had to come back with a shirt. I can't remember why, but I came back with an Arsenal shirt and my brother had a Manchester United one.”
“First and foremost, Wenger saw us as human beings and he had a lot of faith in us, which is why he stood by us.”
“When people are acutely depressed, many of them seem to want to hide.”
“I want to make an impact on young people's lives and be part of their future no matter what they do because I have seen that all the very talented players at 15, 16 still had very little chance to be successful in football.”