I had wanted to play for Penarol since I was a boy. When I was young, I would go to their training ground, but at 18, I left Uruguay for Argentina, and my professional career started.

There were no Manchester United fans protesting when I left their club in 2005. I wasn't one of their most important players, so I moved on, worked really hard, got my breaks, and my career took off.

Players should get the best deals for themselves whenever they can. Football is a relatively short career.

I have a career, and I deserve respect.

Anything that's outside the standard of the average black male is looked down upon. For me, I wasn't raised playing sports. I was artistic, so that was looked down upon by people in my church, and I was teased for that growing up in school, so it goes both ways.

Well, I don't think I've necessarily ever been a passionate football player or a passionate person.

I got real bored in '96. Wasn't nobody to fight. Nothing to look forward to. That's when I started playing basketball again. Had I not started playing basketball, my boxing career would have failed. But I went from a sport where nobody could touch me to another where I couldn't touch nobody.

I've always been like that. I was a tomboy when I was a kid, so I was always playing baseball and basketball and football and stuff as a kid with the boys.