We are getting to the point where, like the men's game, playing football is not only a legitimate career but enables you to live really well and can perhaps even set you up for life. It will allow little girls to tell their mums and dads they want to be professional footballers and not have their dreams dismissed so easily.

Women's football will always be different from men's football, but that doesn't mean you cannot still appreciate it. OK, so it might be a bit slower than the men's game, but then League Two football is slower than the Champions League, and it doesn't stop people turning out to see their local teams.

If you're a footballer, your club should be able to help you with medical needs, and that's where the women's game gets a lack of respect. It doesn't reflect well on women's football at all.

We see every game as a big game, and, as you know in tournament football, anything is possible. Each game, we want to keep raising the bar and lifting our standards and putting goals past teams.

Coming from a football background, when everybody is doing their job and operating on such a high level, it only motivates you to do the same.

Growing up in San Antonio, I was the dork at the Friday night football games with my head buried in a book - Jack Kerouac or Oscar Wilde, years before I really understood them.

You're going to watch football all your life - you're going to watch the Champions League and the Europa League - and I don't have a great feeling when I watch the Europa League, but when I watch the Champions League, I have a great feeling.

I always had that, even when I was a kid in a go-kart or when I was playing soccer or tennis: that need of winning. It was there all my life, and it's still there now.