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Football in Brazil is seen as a masculine sport, even with a lot of people accepting the female sport.

I wanted to be a soccer player. I knew that couldn't happen.

And of course in America you've got American football and baseball and all those other ball games, soccer has become a little niche that the women have kind of filled.

I want to be involved in soccer some way.

I'm not a huge soccer fan, but I follow the sport. I played in high school, a little bit in college, played on various club teams most of my life, and all three of my sons are competitive soccer players and far better than I ever was.

Brazil was a very good experience. I learned a lot about how to play football, both technical and physical. There would be a hundred kids of all ages, training and doing classes together.

I played soccer for 12 years on three different teams at a time.

One of our problems is the culture of Brazil which focuses on men's football. Of course we would like to change that. Maybe one day we will have a strong competitive league instead of our women footballers always having to play abroad.

I wanted to be a soccer player; I wanted to do it at the highest level.

I always thought I wanted to play professionally, and I always knew that to do that I'd have to make a lot of sacrifices. I made sacrifices by leaving Argentina, leaving my family to start a new life. I changed my friends, my people. Everything. But everything I did, I did for football, to achieve my dream.