Diambil dari website Mail Online, interview dengan bintang Arsenal Robin van Persie. Dalam interview yang sengaja tidak dialih bahasa untuk menjaga autentikasinya ini, RvP bercerita tentang masa kecilnya, tentang Arsenal, tentang ambisinya. Patut untuk dibaca!

Robin Van Persie tackles the topics of discussion two by two. He reflects on the two creative parents who passed on a gene he believes has defined him as a footballer. On the two weeks he spent in a Rotterdam jail.

The two tenths of a second, at most, he has before being clattered by a defender. On being too impatient. Even the moment when he planted two darts in the bed of the treble 20, only to choke when he launched the third.

For the best part of an hour at Arsenal's training ground , Van Persie provides a fascinating insight into the mind of a very modern, one might say modernist, Barclays Premier League superstar.

He says he is someone who endeavours to make the best of any situation and every aspect of his life. Even when it comes to something as trivial as ping pong.

When Van Persie discovered he was actually rather good at table tennis, he wanted to measure himself against the best and enlisted the help of Arsenal in arranging a game against a young English professional.

The pro won comfortably but remained impressed enough to suggest that he could make a living from the sport. If, that is, he was prepared t o quit his rather more lucrative career as a scorer of beautiful goals.

He reckons he would be pretty good at other sports, too. His father might be a sculptor but his love of art is almost matched by his love for darts.

'My dad throws a good dart,' he says with boyish pride, having recently attended the world championship final between Phil Taylor and the Dutchman, Raymond van Barneveld.

'I'm not bad. I will probably hit two or three bullseyes in every 10 darts and I nearly threw a 180 once. The first two went in the treble but then I hesitated, thinking, "Oh my god", and the third dropped just below the wire. Damn!'

Van Persie's enthusiasm is infectious and never more so than when he talks about football. While he did not inherit the passion for art that is shared by his parents - his mother is a painter - he sees beauty in a perfect pass and what he calls 'solutions and possibilities' on a football pitch.

'I don't see things the way my parents do,' he says. 'They can look at a tree and see something amazing, whereas I just see a tree. That's not to say I don't appreciate its beauty. When I watch the sea in somewhere like Sardinia, I see the beauty in that.

'But I think there is a creative connection with my parents. It's hard to explain in words, hard to put my finger on it. But I think football is where my creativity comes out.

'Like them, I think I see things other people, and other players, don't when it comes to certain situations. When I look at a football pitch I suppose, yes, I see it as my canvas. I see solutions, possibilities, the space to express myself. I am always looking for ways to be creative, to gain an edge .

'I wasn't artistic in drawing or painting but I think I am artistic in sport. I think I'm always looking for the ultimate, the maximum. It's a challenge that excites me.'

Van Persie was particularly excited by the results of a study that Arsene Wenger recently presented to his Arsenal players. 'It focused on the thinking time players have in different parts of the field,' he says.

'Midfielders, on average, get somewhere between half a second and a second to think before they have to move the ball on. For strikers, however, it is significantly less, between 0.1 and 0.2 of a second before a defender is on them.

'I found that really interesting because it just makes the test even greater and makes it more satisfying when something comes off.

'It can make an assist as satisfying as a goal. Like the pass I played into the path of Nicklas Bendtner against Hull City. I didn't even look, but I knew where Nicklas was going and everything worked out the way I had imagined it in that 0.1 of a second.

'I needed a bit of luck because I had to play the ball through the legs of the defender. If it had struck one of his feet, the move would have been ruined. But I got the luck and it felt good to then see Nicklas score.'

He recognises how lucky he has been in working with other likeminded artists of the beautiful game. He is gushing about Thierry Henry and full of respect for two Dutch masters, Dennis Bergkamp and Marco van Basten.

'When I was younger, when I first came to Arsenal, I had some really interesting conversations with Dennis and Thierry about football,' he says. 'It was fascinating to discover how they think about the game, realise how clever they were as players.

'They were always one or two steps ahead of the defenders, which is especially difficult in English football.

'I also loved the fact that they demanded such high standards. Thierry could be very demanding. He could never understand why a player would give him a bad pass and he would give them that look.

'You know the one I mean. And the player would often respond by telling him he was trying to do his best. But I liked that about Thierry, because he raised the standard of the football at Arsenal. He demanded that we try and play to the highest possible level.

'Dennis was the same, just amazing to work with. And so was Van Basten when he was in charge of the national team. As a manager and a player he was the same, always looking for the maximum. With me he was great. If things weren't working, he would break the problem down into fine details in the search for a solution.'

This is not the Van Persie some might expect to encounter. Brash, arrogant, petulant? Something of a troublemaker? 'I have never been arrogant,' he says. 'I have values. I have an understanding of life.

'Growing up in Rotterdam and playing on the streets, I had experience of many cultures and I have friends from many cultures. My dad always told me to respect people as much as you expect people to respect you.'

Respect is a big thing for Van Persie and the subject brings us neatly to the much publicised problems he encountered at Feyenoord and, in particular, with more senior players and the then coach, Bert van Marwijk.

After dropping Van Persie from the first team, Van Marwijk spoke of how 'his behaviour made it impossible for him to remain in the squad'. 'I probably was a bit misunderstood and there was probably a breakdown in communication,' says Van Persie.

'But it was partly my mistake, too. I was young, I was immature, I was really ambitious and I was impatient.

'It was my dream to play my whole career at Feyenoord. I grew up in Rotterdam. It was my club. It was my dream, but things changed there and I learned a lot from the experience.

'It was quite difficult making that transition from the youth team to the senior team. Coming through the ranks, at 15, 16 and 17, I was just playing with my friends.

'Then I'm playing with these adults. Some of them were 33 or 34 and playing for the last money they are going to make in their careers. I remember playing against PSV Eindhoven in the UEFA Cup and I did this trick and one of the older guys screamed at me, "Don't do that again. You are playing with my money!".

'I couldn't believe it because, for me, football had only ever been about enjoying myself. I wanted to win, of course, but if I tried a trick it, was because I was trying to find a solution.

'I probably didn't respond too well to that kind of thing. I guess everyone makes mistakes. At the same time, though, some of the players at Feyenoord wouldn't show me respect because of the age I was, because I was just a kid. And I didn't think that was right.

'I remember one week when I'd played two games in the space of a few days and wanted a massage before we played a third game. I had sore legs so I went to see the club masseur. He was booked up but said he'd see me if I came in an hour early the next morning.

'So I did and Pierre van Hooijdonk turns up and tells me it's his turn. I said, "No, it's my turn. I have an appointment". But he said I had to wait because I was only 19. He had pulled rank. So I turned to the masseur but the masseur wouldn't speak up and that really annoyed me. If Jack Wilshere has an appointment to see the masseur here, I would wait until Jack Wilshere had had his massage.

'We are footballers. There might be 20 cameras on us but this is a job. We are working. I've never felt I am better than someone else.'

In prison, he never felt worse. Van Persie was held in a cell for a fortnight while the Dutch authorities conducted their investigation into what proved a false accusation.

The case was completely dismissed by Holland's public prosecution service, leaving Van Persie feeling bitter but, in his words, better for the experience. 'It was tough,' he says, 'and so hot in that cell. I did almost lose consciousness at one point.

'But I remember sitting there just thinking what a waste of time it was. I tried to stay positive and I never panicked because I knew the truth, but I just lost two weeks of my life for nothing.

'Lots of positives came out of it, though. I learned a lot about the people around me and I learned a lot about life. At 21, life can seem easy and I suddenly realised the world doesn't always work like that.

'The manager here was very supportive. I will not forget that. But other people responded in different ways and it gave me the opportunity to have a good look at the people around me. I found out who were my friends, if they were good for me. In that way it was actually a very positive experience.

'Some people, I know, are disappointed with themselves for the way they initially responded. They thought more about themselves than me and, when the truth came out, I think they felt pretty foolish. You sometimes see the real face of people when things are really bad.'

He focuses now on his football and on his young family. He and his wife, Bouchra, have a tw-year-old son and he talks passionately about the desire to have 'lots more kids'.

He wants trophies, too - and hopefully with Arsenal. 'We have been in talks about a new contract for a while now,' he says.

'I have been in some of the meetings and the club knows how I feel about things. 'I am very ambitious and I know the club is, too. I know we have what it takes. The potential is here but we need to make the final step. I have an influence in that. I know that.'

Clearly, Arsenal's form this season has caused him some concern. 'I have an opinion on what the problems are but I don't think it's fair to express that in a newspaper,' he says.

'But we have been unlucky. If you look at the some of the key players, we have been unlucky. Rosicky has been out for a year, Eduardo for nine or 10 months. Cesc Fabregas has been out for a few months now. I had problems last year. It doesn't help.

'We really miss Cesc. I think everyone can see that. He's a special player, a big player, another artist. He has vision, a quick mind. He's the heartbeat of the team. He makes the game.

'The potential is huge but we are not there yet. Right now we are five points behind Aston Villa. All credit to Villa. The way they are working is really good. But this is not the way I want to be. 'I don't even want to fight for fourth place. I want to fight for the title.

'I appreciate we have to first catch Villa. But it's not my ambition to finish ahead of Villa. That's not how I started the season. For the moment this is not good enough. It's not our aim to be fifth. But we are working hard to change that.'

He looks at the players who were paraded on that stage in Zurich last month, recognised by FIFA as the finest in the world: Ronaldo, Messi, Torres, Kaka and Xavi. He has the talent to be there too, one day. 'I'm not there yet,' he says.

'Because it 's not giving me trophies yet. It's not giving me the pleasure at the end of the season, something to show for a season's work. The guys who are sitting there in Zurich are great players who are also winning trophies. And that is what it's about.

'This is not an individual sport and my first thought is what I want to achieve with my team. And only if you achieve something with your team can you then sit back and reflect on the contribution you made to that team.

'My target is to win trophies with Arsenal. Lots of players only think about themselves. There's a saying in Holland:

"If my street is clean enough, then I am happy". I am not like that. I want the whole club working well, not just my street. 'Otherwise I will work on my serve and play tennis.' Or ping pong, or darts.

Source: dailymail.co.uk