My father and my mother were professional footballers and have also been coaches.

Norway has a great history of women's football, but it's harder now. We've stopped talking about development, and other countries have overtaken us.

It's great that we all talk about investment, but there needs to be action behind it as well. If we don't push for the change for women's football to go in the right direction, then it won't come by itself.

I never saw myself as a women's footballer. Not when I was in my tiny village in Norway. Not when I was suffering in Germany. Not when I finally made it to Lyon.

I liked baseball and sports and Garbage Pail Kids and comic books. I know what it's like to really adore something.

Football and me have never got on. My instinct and love for the harder end of contact had always meant I was perhaps a little too heavy-handed for football. Somehow it left me feeling unfulfilled.

I'd been at Chelsea for a while and progressed quite quickly until I got to the first team, and then it was different. I was used to playing every minute of every game, but when you get to that level, the step up is massive. There are world-class players in front of you, and no matter how talented you are, breaking in is difficult.

When I was a kid, the idea of gettin' paid to paint your face... listen, I grew up in Ossining, New York, a nice little town by the Hudson, and nothin' ever interested me except being your usual high school big shot, which I was an' loved it, played all the sports and goofed around, always out on the street with the guys, everything was funny t'me.