Juan Mata looks to the future - sees a vital role for football in 2021

“I have a soft spot for Messi, he is a guy that every time I see him play football makes my life better. Of course all the players can have better seasons than him, but he's the one that I like the most, and I will give him the trophy for the best player every year, because of what he's done in his career.

“What he still does is just unbelievable. I hope if he comes to Manchester it’s to my club and not the other.”

“I don't think there is any better way to connect to as many people in the world, and of course football is the biggest sport in the world. 2021 is going to be a very important year for sport in trying to help as much as we can to overcome this pandemic.

 “I see Marcus Rashford, my friend, my team-mate, doing what he's doing for a lot of kids in this country, I see Raheem Sterling, Jordan Henderson, with the football players’ fund to help Covid, Hector Bellerin, my fellow Spanish, also a friend, doing a lot of things for the planet.

“So I think there is now a situation in which we football players, we are understanding our privileged position, our platform, and we know that we can help and we can do it in a very efficient way.

“I have congratulated Marcus, he's 23 and what he has done on the pitch for us, and for the English national team, has been great, and he will keep doing that because he's a fantastic player. But especially over the last months, what he's done here in England, helping so many kids with food, it's just been great.

“And he's lived it himself, he suffered that situation through his family, with his mum, so he knows what he's doing, he knows how many people it's helping, and that he's trying to tackle a situation that so many kids unfortunately live here in the UK. So, I only said ‘Congratulations, keep going, and you have my full support in any way because it's something that needed to be done, and I'm very happy that you are the one that is doing it’.”

He said: “It’s a different time for all of us. Games are not the same without fans, we know there's no atmosphere. Football has changed, but we cannot complain. Thankfully we are fit to play and to give something spectacular for the fans.

“It hasn't been a perfect start of the season for us in terms of the Premier League, with not so good results, especially in the beginning. In the Champions League we did very well in the first two games, winning six points against PSG and Leipzig, of course who are very difficult teams. Then we had a bad day in Turkey, but we are still top of the group.

“I think we were improving and we will improve. The big favourites to win the Premier League are also having difficulties getting results, so I would prefer to focus on short term goals, which is the next few games. Of course I think Manchester United is a club that should be playing Champions League every year, so that's an important aim.”

“Both of them are great players who understand football, I think, more or less the way I do, which is trying to play with combinations, with passes and movement, and I enjoy playing with them a lot, because we understand each other very well on the pitch.

“We like to play the last pass to the striker, we like to play the positional game that we played some years ago in Spain, and they are also used to playing in Holland and Portugal, so it's great to play with them. I’m sure they will be very important players for the future of this club.”

“As a professional football player, it's very unlikely you will have the same manager for your whole career. It used to happen before, for example, Sir Alex Ferguson was here for 20 years. So, the best thing that you can do, as a football player nowadays, is to adapt to the manager that you have at each given moment.

“Right now, we have Ole, who is a legend of the club, who is a very nice person, and he has a way of playing which is different from Jose Mourinho, for example. I think one of my best qualities that I've had over the years is trying to adapt to the way of playing football that the manager has.

“Jose Mourinho is a manager that likes to play a more compact game with quick players up front for the counter attack. And, you know, I try to adapt to each one of them, I played more with some of them than the others, but I always try to take the best out of them.

“So, yes. In different situations in my career I've had the support of the managers, in others situations it was more difficult, but I saw it as a challenge, I tried to take every difficult situation into an opportunity to improve as a player, and that's what I did, I believe.”

“I'm very proud, every time we are in the bus, for example, going from the hotel to the stadium when life was normal, and I would see a kid wearing my shirt, the No.8, with my name on it. It always felt like the first time I've seen it. Seeing a kid or a couple of kids with my shirt makes me feel very happy and excited, and it makes me keep going to achieve more things in my career and for them.”

“For me, football is a professional sport in which I win or lose or I can win trophies or not, but, I know that for many millions of kids around the world it's an escape, it's a way of living, it's a way of trying to make their life better and be in charge of their future.

“It's a way of leaving violence behind, it's a way of making friends and having a healthier lifestyle. I know how powerful football can be and is. And in general, sport. Of course I think that it is the biggest tool that we have as humankind to try to reach people, to try to help people, to try to communicate to people through sport, because everyone loves sport. It doesn't matter if you like football, tennis, whatever you like, you do it with passion, and I think we should acknowledge that and we should try to use it for the positive even more.”