We want to be treated as professionals and like the male footballers.

I'm a professional footballer, and I get paid for doing my job.

For the women's team, our job is to be professional footballers for club and country and be the best role models we can be.

I've been playing semi-professional football since I was 14, really.

I want to be a professional athlete who plays for the love of the game, never quits trying to give my best and is a good role model for all of the kids who look up to baseball players.

My father thought sport was something fun - he didn't know it was a way to make money. Then I won a Mercedes at the world championships and I gave it to him. From the moment it arrived my father said: 'Good, you can support not just yourself but me too'.

I think that from the time you start playing sports as a child you see that your responsibility to your team is to play the best that you can play as an individual... and yet, not take anything away from being part of a team.

It's a competitive business, and everybody wants to be the best. And when there's a new guy coming in, and there's buzz about him, 'Oh, he was a pro football player,' you instantly have people that don't like you because they're afraid you're going to take their spot.