A big difference I had with the preparation for the Champions League final compared with other games was having more time to prepare. I had two weeks without a game before both finals.That means you can get more data and add extra information into the preparation. You also have to take into account that it might go to penalties, with the possibility of everybody shooting a penalty, so you prepare for everybody and try to find information about everybody or all the different scenarios.What's also different is the mental preparation for how to deal with the demands of the final, because you know how much is at stake. You know how much it means to everybody so the pressure is adding and you are fully aware that with the Champions League final, unless you are in an exceptional team and things are going well, you are not playing in it every season.You have to find your own way to digest all this. The easiest part is once the game is being played because you do what you are supposed to do.In the last days before the game, how people prepare for this level of pressure which comes with playing the final is the biggest part, as well as adding all the necessary data and information.

Having to come in to training every day thinking the final is coming, the time goes slow and things drag.The more time you have to think about it, the more pressure it creates. You have to be able to accept there will be pressure, that the game might start to go wrong so what would you do next, what is your next plan.You have to be prepared for everything and that’s the key for the final. Two weeks is probably too big a gap between the last game and the final but this year the players probably do not feel it as much because the turnaround is quite quick.

There is lot of media activity that takes place ahead of the final.Some people are more comfortable doing interviews and some people might be shy and not as comfortable having to do all the interviews, the taking of the pictures and the short videos. Whether it is a distraction or not is very individual but it just shows you how big an occasion it is. You really realise this is special because this is not normally happening and it's really amazing to be involved in it.People think okay, you play professional football all your life, go and play another game but actually it's not entirely true because as a human being, you have emotions, feelings and dreams.

The two finals I played in ended in a penalty shoot-out and we had practised penalties a lot in the build-up.With the process of shooting the penalties and saving the penalties in training, you can't really replicate the pressure and the moment. Everybody can shoot a penalty without pressure because it's easy but once you have everything at stake and the margins are small, it is a completely different exercise.The players go through the penalties in practice to see what they would be comfortable repeating in the game. It is about being clear when the penalty comes that I will shoot this way and trust it. We practised because we wanted people to find their way.The players who don't shoot normally might be involved in the shoot-out and they have to find out what they are going to do. In one of the finals I played in it worked out, in the other it didn't, but that's exactly football when you go to the shoot-out. It is a bit of a lottery.

For goalkeepers, practising penalties gives you time to observe how people shoot and their body language.You can play with the timing, you know you can go faster, you can go slower, you can move or you can stand. You can work out what you do against a penalty taker who goes slow and find out what's comfortable and what's not profitable, what might work, what might not work.You already have the information about the opposition team, what their penalty takers usually do. You need to trust the process because if you go unprepared and try to figure out what you're going to do in an off-the-cuff way, it might be too late.When you have some kind of strategy and you tried it in training, it keeps you prepared.

There was uncertainty about who would play in the defence in front of me for both finals.Ashley Cole was injured in training the night before the 2008 game and David Luiz and Gary Cahill both had injuries leading up to 2012.We did not know who would play until after the warm-up before the game. We had a team plan with both in, we had a team plan with one in, we had a team plan with none of them in. We had a team plan with Ash playing in Moscow and another team plan without him in Moscow.The players go to the warm-up and you just hope they will survive it but because we talked about it and we knew that might be the scenarios for the final, people were prepared for it.It's not ideal but the worst part is when you are not prepared for anything like that, when the changes happen out of nowhere.

For a Champions League final, you have a good idea what the opposition team is going to be and the opposition knows that about you as well.There is not a big element of surprise in terms of the personnel. When you come to the final, usually you don't experiment because of the pressure. You rely on the team feeling comfortable in the shape and in the system.

In Moscow, it rained heavily but I actually like it when the pitch is wet because although the ball skids through fast and is slippery, it has a consistent bounce.When you have a hot day and they water the pitch, the problem is that in some places it dries out faster and it creates inconsistent bounce. It's easier to catch the ball when it is dry but personally, when the pitch can change the direction of the bounce, I found that trickier.

In Munich, we knew it would be like an away game.We had no illusion about that although you know it was a fair split of the tickets from the point of view of those given to each club. The moment we walked out of the tunnel, we realised that everything's red and only behind one goal is blue but we said okay, it is what it is, you need to deal with that and during the game you really lock into what is happening on the pitch.You know when playing a final as an away game, all the statistics and all the probabilities are of the home team winning. Everything is in favour of Bayern, playing in their own stadium and using their own dressing room. You realise how much tougher it is and how big an achievement it was for us to win.

The night before the two finals, I was not able to sleep very well.It was because of all the information I had in my head, thinking about penalties, asking do I remember the plans, do I need to check the notes again. You wake up having a dream about letting the ball run through your legs and you just go okay, I don't want to do that. All sort of things like that go through your head and you sleep but you might wake up a few times.The day of the game, I had always 20 to 30 minutes nap, a kind of power nap just to charge up a little bit but by the afternoon, you have the adrenalin already going through you because you know the game is coming.In Munich, I was drumming for about two hours. I took my practice pad out of the bag and the sticks and I did some exercises on that as I needed to find some distraction away from the game. This helped me to relax because I was concentrating on the drum patterns. It helped me greatly to find a little bit of peace of mind.

You don’t feel tired by the time the game comes but you feel the pressure.At the start of the warm-up it was like I was carrying a bag of 30 kilos on my back but the moment you go to catch the first ball and start your warm-up, the head switches and this is what you want to do – be on the pitch and play rather than sit in a room and think about it.I kept the same warm-up routine throughout my career but I'm not superstitious so if I changed the order it didn't bother me. It was the content of the warm-up which made me feel prepared to play the game.

When the first whistle of the Champions League final was blown at last, I was like okay, this is it, this is the chance, let's go!This is what you were waiting for so it is now or never and I was ready for that.Once you try to do your best out there, no matter what the outcome, you can take it because you have no regrets about preparation and you know you have done everything.We did everything for Moscow, we did everything for Munich. The Moscow one we lost, it hurt, and it will always hurt, but at the same time you know you've done everything you could and it wasn't to be so you can live it. Of course the Munich one we won.