When I was in the GB Women's football team at the 2012 Olympics, it was obvious who was in the first XI and who was making up the numbers. Kelly Smith was going to be first-choice striker no matter what, and the other forwards in the squad mentally checked out as a result.
My dad was working abroad, in Iraq, and he was a doctor. We used to go and visit him, in Baghdad, off and on. For the first ten years of my life, we used to go backwards and forwards to Baghdad, so that was quite amazing. I spent a lot of time traveling around the Middle East.
I went backwards and forwards over it until I was 22. And then in the past few years I began to say to myself, OK, look, I'm not messing around. This is something I want to attack, instead of thinking, I'll just see what happens with it.
It's a competitive business and obviously a lot of money is involved in the sport and the regulators sometimes have difficult decisions to make, but hopefully for the benefit of Formula 1 and all the fans across the world, we can move forwards into 2008 with all the focus on the race track rather than in the courtroom.
All coaches now look for forwards who not only score goals but also run back and help in midfield.
I've turned into a full-back who pushes forwards whereas in Italy usually the full-back concentrates more on defending.
Before I go up against the best forwards in the world - Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi, Neymar - I study their strengths and weaknesses like an obsession, and then I plan how I am going to attack. My goal is to show the world that Dani Alves is on the same level.
Tim Duncan is one of the greatest power forwards in the history of our game. Being younger and just watching him play, winning championships, that was always cool to be able to play against him.
In actual fact, I doubled 'Twelfth Night' and 'The Avengers'. I was going backwards and forwards to Stratford. I played matinees Wednesday, matinee and evenings Saturdays, and the other days of the week, I was filming in Elstree.
I'm a guy who likes to keep fighting five, six times a year, so if I ask for too much money, they might say, 'Well, we pay you too much. We can't let you keep jumping backwards and forwards and promote it.' The money I'm making is good to keep grabbing short-notice fights. I love them; they're my favorite ones.
