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My first obsession was actually sports. I was a very good handball goalkeeper. With special permission, I played in the premier league in Germany before I was even old enough.

I've grown up watching football my whole life.

Football was what I was good at, and it was what I loved.

By the time I was 10 years old, my entire life was football. Training, reading, watching, even playing football on PlayStation. I was totally focused on it. I especially loved the creative players - the maestros.

Football has always been a big part of my life. Almost from the day I was born, playing and coaching football were all I really ever wanted to do.

I dabbled in football myself until the age of 14, but I didn't have as much love for the sport as I did track and field. I would never have been good enough to take it to the highest level.

I always played sports when I was young. I played football and baseball for eight years. I loved football.

I was on the football team because I wanted to experience the different iconic social classes of high school. So football for me was an attempt to socially integrate in an interesting way. And then I didn't like it anymore and stopped doing it and focused more on drama and science and other forms of art and music.

Football has been my life for as long as I can remember.

Football was a wonderful experience for me. It was a means of, oh, I don't know, sustaining for much of my youth. In times of trouble, I've always had football. I always knew I was a football player. And that was a comfort on many occasions.