During the holidays, professional players would come and say hello to us in the academy and that really made you want to be a professional. When you saw what great conditions they lived in, it gave you even more desire.

I've learnt to adapt on the pitch and, when I think back, also in front of goal.

I am working very hard at training to improve my efficiency, to be more clinical in front of goal.

Our country craves for the trophy of the African Cup of Nations. I am craving for such a trophy in my career.

My mother, who graduated from high school at sixteen, had no hope of affording college, so she went to work in the local post office for a dollar a day. She was doing better than her father, who earned ten cents an hour working at a nearby grain elevator.

My mother was gentle and warm. She was the sort of person you could really open up to. I was the eldest and her only boy, so I guess I was treated differently. She did bring me up as a Catholic, and at one time I was an altar boy, but I lost my faith, as did my father, when my mother died at 45.

It was through the private world of family that the public world of politics came alive for me: living in intimate proximity with people for whom larger questions of ideology and belief, as well as issues relating to politics and governance, were vivid daily realities.

To me, I would say that Cesar is underrated. As a defender, he has got everything. He's quick; he's got that desire, passion for the game. He just wants to play football. Azpilicueta is never tired. He can run all night in every minute. He wants to play every game.