Germany's skipper and goal machine on Spurs, his bust-up with Lothar Matthaus and winning in France...

You must be going to the World Cup with Germany feeling pretty pleased with yourself after helping keep Spurs in the Premiership.

The end of the season was absolutely fantastic. I think the day I scored four goals at Selhurst Park in the match against Wimbledon as one of the most precious moments in my career. Everything was right that day and it was a very proud moment for me. Spurs stayed up and that was the main job I had to do when I came back. It was reported that I was paid £200,000 pounds for keeping them up But that was nonsense. That money was never offered to me.

Would you have held yourself personally responsible if Spurs had gone down?

I was more concerned about the club than my own reputation. You see, all the clubs with a big reputation think it will never happen to them. But I've seen it happen in my own country. FC Cologne and Karlsruhe went down this year and they are both big, big operations. Look at Nottingham Forest in England last season. People thought they would never go down. I'm really glad it didn't happen to Tottenham and that I helped the club to stay up. It obviously put me on a high and when I hooked up with the German squad I still had a big smile on my face."

So just what was the problem with Spurs this season?

Well I can only speak for myself, but I definitely had my problems with the manager. I believe that an experienced player must try and help out both on and off the pitch at his club. I really tried to help Gross, but there was no feedback from him. I had no relationship with the manager at all and there were problems about all sorts of things. I don't really want to get into all that stuff, but it did upset me a lot at the time. In the end I just stopped trying to help him anymore. I was just pleased that the lads stuck together and that we did the job.

Your relationship with the German coach Berti Vogts seems a lot better…

Well, I get feedback from him. He listens to what you have to say and he's very open-minded. He likes to learn new things and has a very good relationship with his players. We can ring him at two in the morning in his hotel room if there's something important that we need to discuss with him. Things went badly wrong for us in the 1994 World Cup, but Vogts learned from that and decided to improve a number of things. It's important for a coach to listen to his experienced players. Two years later we won the European Championships, so you can draw your own conclusions.

So are Germany good enough to lift the World Cup again this year?

It's our mental strength in major tournaments that makes us winners. In any competition the atmosphere in a squad is incredibly important to the team's success. As a coach you have to make sure that every player wants to fight and work hard for his teammates. In Euro 96 there were definitely teams with more skill and playing better football than Germany. England and France played more attractive football, but they didn't have the same spirit in the squad that Germany did. That's been the secret of our success.

How do you rate your chances in this tournament, then? You'll be without Matthias Sammer, one of your most influential players in Euro 96?

Losing Sammer is a big blow for us. He's a very important part of the team. He communicates well with the players, has great vision and is good for team spirit. He's had so many injuries though, that it wasn't a surprise that he didn't make it. We'll miss him for his leadership qualities on the pitch, but we'll just have to deal with it.