I only deal in what is real. To be honest, I've never thought about what I could get out of football or where it would take me. I just wanted to play. I'm the same now.
And I don't really like golf. I know a lot of English footballers play, but I know that if I go with the club to play, sooner or later I will end up trying to smash the ball with my foot.
At the end of the day, you either want or you don't want to know about it. It's a mercy thing - you have to give back. However you do it, you have to give something back. You have to.
In July 2011, U.S. Soccer announced that they'd fired Bob Bradley and hired Jurgen Klinsmann as head coach. Jurgen had once been a world-class German striker; now he was regarded as a successful, if controversial, coach.
If there is a less likely sight on this earth than Clint Dempsey, the Texas trailer-park kid, doing downward-facing dog poses, or the stalwart Michael Bradley deep breathing through a tree pose, I have yet to see it.
If you told me to sit in a room, and you had a million dollars cash stacked right there and said, 'Don't move, don't twitch, don't do anything,' without a doubt, the million dollars would be mine.
When I see someone wearing fur, I just want to sit them down in front of one of PETA's videos and show them just how badly animals suffer for this supposed fabric that no one needs.
But the manager's bought wisely - the players who've come in have taken us on to a different level and the players who won promotion have also performed at the top level, so long may it continue.
I became more confident within myself and matured as a person and become a little bit more opinionated - maybe the lads might say a little bit too opinionated for their liking but that is just a natural progression for a player.
Here at Carolina, our World Cup opponents marked their calendars. Obviously the other nations wanted to win every game, but a big upset over the U.S. was something we knew other teams would cherish.
Some people asked me if it was going to be a downer to come back and play on a college team after playing on a world championship team, and I don't think they understand what it is like to play here.
If I go out in the street and one guy gets a picture, then someone calls the press to say Mario was there. The day after in the press, it's, 'Mario was there'. That's normal, I just walk in town like a normal guy.
Sometimes in football you deserve to win but lose. Other times you deserve to lose or draw but you win. That is the game, and it's why I've always said you should never try to predict anything in football, especially in Europe.
Not all dreamers are winners, but all winners are dreamers. Your dream is the key to your future. The Bible says that, "without a vision (dream), a people perish." You need a dream, if you're going to succeed in anything you do.
I've turned into a technological wizard. I can send emails now, which for me is unbelievable. They don't make any sense, but I can send them. I call it e-mithering.
Ever since I was a kid, I've dreamt about winning the Brazilian league, and I still dream about it now. I am doing everything I possibly can to make my dream come true.
In that match for Holland I asked for a big responsibility, I got it and I dealt with it. I played well, I scored goals and the team qualified for the Euro 2004 finals. It was a big night and an important moment for Holland.
When we got knocked out against Porto in the Champions League, I only slept two hours that night. I was not a nice person to be with after that match. I was struggling to get the result out of my system.
When I moved from Independiente to Atletico Madrid, I was only 18, and I found it hard to adapt. But what surprised me most about moving to England was how fast the game was. I like it, but it is so quick.
I was born to score goals, I feel. How I score them - how I get the ball into the back of the net - might have changed. The actual ability of what I was born to do will never leave me.
I was proper, proper fast at one point, and obviously I'm not now, so I've lost certain things, but when I was that fast I didn't need to do certain other things in a game. It was such a potent weapon.
