Football is a bit like chess: it's not just the piece being moved that matters; it's also the effect that move has on all the other pieces.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Football is a chess game to me. If you move your pawn against my bishop, I'll counter that move to beat you. Football is the same way. I study so much film that I know exactly what teams are going to do. I love knowing what a offense is going to run and stuffing that play.
I play football like chess. You have to think a lot and anticipate what could happen after you make your move.
Football is big business - you can't get away from it. But you have to separate that side from the playing.
You have different sorts of people in life, so why should it be any different in football?
A couple of games, I played up front when Diego Costa was not there. We know to create movement - not even to get the ball, but create space for others. Now I understand football is not always with the ball at my feet.
English football is so physical and fast that when you see a space, you have to go into it with all your speed.
What happens is once you start to understand football, you realise that it's not just about the physical side of the game and chasing after a ball. It's a strategic sport which requires a lot of intelligence. It's a very mental game.
Football is made up of all kinds of conflict. In a dressing room, between players, between us and the manager, between us and loads of people who don't seem to matter. It's constant and harsh sometimes.
Football can generate excitement and bring people together.
While American football is very structured and linear and static - where everyone lines up, and there's a burst, and it happens - soccer is like the cosmos. It's like constellations. It's bodies moving in space. It's a very spherical game.