Tony Adams has a strategy for winning FA Cup Finals. Because he did, three times, it is probably a very good one, although he might not have imparted every last drop of personal experience to Portsmouth's players as they prepared for today's match. Adams believes that the key is to treat the game as any other, yet he knows very well that it is not. Just a normal day at the office, lads - and by the way, your desk is teetering on the edge of a cliff.

Adams's Arsenal tumbled in 2001, when two late goals by Michael Owen helped Liverpool to pinch the Cup. “Whoever you face, you need to win,” the former England defender said. “It's the most horrific experience of my life, losing an FA Cup Final.” And this from a man who has spent 57 days in prison for drink-driving, battled alcohol addiction for more than a decade - and dated Caprice.

“People say 'at least you've had the day out' and all that, but I think it's total rubbish. I'd rather lose in the first round. To see the Cup paraded in front of you - you've come so close and you don't get to touch it - is a terrible feeling.”

So what has Adams told his charges? “You've got to play it down, but still be competitive, passionate, alive. You see so many people try so hard and they get carried away with their emotions and the occasion. You've really got to stay focused.”

The climax of the FA Cup competition, sponsored by E.ON, is probably Adams's last fixture as Portsmouth's assistant manager before he seeks to step up. He retired from playing in 2002 after 22 years with Arsenal, studied sports science at Brunel University and had a difficult year in charge of Wycombe Wanderers in 2003-04. Then he coached in the Netherlands, observing coaches around Europe, as he did as an apprentice defender when studying Alvin Martin, Billy Bonds, Alan Hansen and David O'Leary.

In 2006 he arrived at Fratton Park to work with Harry Redknapp. “There's no manager that I've experienced that plays from the gut more than Harry,” Adams said. “Right or wrong, he follows his heart. You know where you stand with him. I just float around it and when he's sad or mad I kind of go in and soften the blow with the lads.

“With someone like Arsène [Wenger, the Arsenal manager], who wouldn't say a thing, it's very different. Arsène throws bibs on a Friday at people. I remember Steve Bould getting a bib - that meant you were in the reserves - and he picked it up and threw it straight back at him: don't throw a bib at me, I want to be told. Arsène's still throwing bibs now. It's the way he does business.”

You sense that Adams the manager would combine Wenger's obsessive detail with a warmer training-ground climate. Football has many academies but few academics. Adams calls himself “a kind of sociologist”, saying: “I learn all my things from pain. I've won a great deal, but I always remember all the painful stuff. It inspires me, it motivates me, it always has done from when I was a kid. When it's peaceful and quiet, things don't seem to work for me. I start to worry, become very uncomfortable.

The curiosity ripens into restlessness, the quest for knowledge becomes a thirst for achievement. “There's something really deep inside me and I've got to fulfil it. I'll probably be smacked and I'll get up, and I'll be smacked and I'll get up again. I'll take it to the grave because that's what I'm like.

“I was the same when I was a player, this ‘over my dead body' stuff. I don't want to sound intense because I don't think I am, I don't live like this on a daily basis, but a bit inside me is going to say, ‘You need to pursue this.' I can't let it go. It's an urge to win. I'm trying to prove something to me.

“It's pretty much taken over my life. My wife turned to me the other day and said, ‘Will you stop talking about football?' We had a big argument over it. I said, ‘Well, it's my life, darling. It's what I do.' It is 24/7, but I still think there is a balance and you can do it. I was completely addicted to alcohol 12 years ago and I put enough effort and time into getting smashed most of the time. When I got sober I noticed I had a lot of time on my hands.”

The mobile phone is switched off at 7pm every night, when Adams might head out, perhaps to a theatre or restaurant. He can avoid calls but not a calling that refuses to be set to silent mode. “I don't know what's next,” he said. “There's no offers on the table, but I'm not impatient. It's when, not if. I don't think I could stand still. I'm quite happy on the mower going round the garden, playing with the kids and walking the dog. But the game's been my life. It's what I do. I can never walk away.”