The news media tends to act like the kids on a young soccer team. We all follow the ball as it moves from one side of the field to the next - like a kids' soccer game. And the kid who ends up scoring a goal was the one who's off to the corner by himself just waiting for the opportunity.
Like many kids, I was thrown into recreational soccer in my town, and from there, I grew to love it. Everywhere I went, I carried a soccer ball with me.
I grew up loving Brazilian soccer. What made me think soccer was cool was these guys making soccer look like fun and easy, and they would just destroy people. It was an art. I loved that. And that's the way I learned the game and mimicked a style. It's just so beautiful.
If I wanted to play soccer, I'd step out on that soccer field like I'm the best soccer player. Even though I don't have that much experience, I always try to have that type of confidence in myself just to make people believe it.
I used to be so into soccer. I would wear soccer team hoodies, another soccer team's pants, and Manchester United earrings. And I had, like, five of everything, so I would just wear the same outfit all the time!
Books lined the shelves of bookstores like kids standing in a row to play baseball or soccer, and mine was the gangly, unathletic kid that no one wanted on their team.
I've been going to soccer games since I was a kid. For me, soccer brought people together. You didn't need money to do it. You needed one ball and your friends. That's what's so amazing about the game and why it's so global.
I played soccer all my life and I used to think growing up that they put the fat kid in goal or they put the kid that wasn't good with the ball at their feet in goal and I never wanted to do goalkeeper, I was always the goal scorer.
Soccer helped especially with my footwork. When I played soccer, I was on offense scoring goals - I didn't pass the ball so much so it probably didn't help much with being a point guard.
I think where we're still a little bit behind some other countries is just our pure soccer knowledge and our savvy on the field. That takes time and generations that have watched soccer growing up, played the game growing up.
My very first sport was soccer. I used to play in goal, but after I was hit the face with the ball a couple of times, I was done with soccer.
Every kid around the world who plays soccer wants to be Pele. I have a great responsibility to show them not just how to be like a soccer player, but how to be like a man.
We don't play golf often [with kids] because they don't play that much anymore - because their kids don't play. It's like anything else - fathers these days end up in the parks on the weekends and they have their kids into lacrosse or soccer or whatever it might be.
The natural thing in Africa is to start playing soccer at 8 or 9. You go outside and you play like kids play basketball here, and you grow a feel for the game. In Africa, the kids start playing basketball at 16 or 17 or 18, and when they get an opportunity to come here, they have been playing for only one or two years.
Obviously, football and soccer seem to clash a lot, but soccer was great for me. It's a game that you play with triangles. You make a pass thinking that the person you pass the ball to is going to make the next pass.
I like the individualism about it. I like how each player is kind of different. It's a team sport, but still, once you've got the ball in your hand, you can kind of create things. But I like the team dynamic about it also. You've got to work together in soccer to score a goal.
I used to go to my kids' soccer games and I was the only parent who wasn't screaming, because I'd have to do a show that night. It was hard. Moms and dads get more emotional at those soccer and Little League games than at a professional game.