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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.

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.

I'm at my most comfortable out on the pitch when I'm in front of goal with the ball at my feet. It's about being used to certain situations, and with time, you will find, chances don't get snatched at.

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.

The way I grew up playing, and the way most Americans have grown up, is that you hit the ball up in the air and then it stops where it lands.

People think footballers are all like robots - we can control everything on the pitch. But your heart is beating 200 times a minute; it's very, very physical.

Football and me have never got on. My instinct and love for the harder end of contact had always meant I was perhaps a little too heavy-handed for football. Somehow it left me feeling unfulfilled.

Where I come from, all of us wanted to be footballers. We played all the time; that's all we did at school or wherever until it went dark and you couldn't see the ball.