My parents gave up things for me when I was growing up.

I started out at youth level as a holding midfielder.

Your eyes are very important as a professional footballer.

I was only 19 when I came to Hoffenheim. Everything was new to me - a strange country, a foreign language. That was not easy at the beginning. Europe was a big adventure to me, and of course I had my doubts.

Some people thought I wasn't taking the sport seriously because I was always laughing and having fun, but I loved my skiing, I loved my jumping, and I thought, 'Well, why not have a smile on my face when I'm doing something that I really, really love doing,' and that's how I was.

My dad has definitely sacrificed a lot for me, and I don't know if I could do it if I was in his shoes. Leaving your life behind and chasing this dream because your kid is passionate about this sport.

I would say that one of the really special gifts about playing an athlete is that it's the best motivation you'll ever have to get in top shape and stay in top shape because you know that you're going to be expected to deliver.

Science has taught us, against all intuition, that apparently solid things like crystals and rocks are really almost entirely composed of empty space. And the familiar illustration is the nucleus of an atom is a fly in the middle of a sports stadium, and the next atom is in the next sports stadium.