With each year that's gone by, and as I grow up and get older, I've become more mature, of course, but you have a sense of who you are, and you find confidence in that.

You know journalists. You know the media. They are going to hang on to anything negative they possibly can.

My father showed me so much love. He showed my brother so much love. He just, he had a rough life. You know, he grew up in a boys home in the Bronx. He didn't really know his own family. So I couldn't hold it against him that he didn't know how to parent. He didn't know how to be the perfect husband. But he loved as much as he could.

My life goes in four-year cycles. The World Cup is every four years and the Olympics are every four years.

When the Olympics and World Cups come around, that's when you see the real outpouring of support that there really is for female football.

She [my mother] struggled, abusing alcohol for quite some time, and so we just kind of drifted apart. I went to college. But I dedicate the book to her because she is the true champion of the family. She kept our family together. She provided us with a roof over our head. She always worked.

It's a complicated thing, knowing how much pain my father caused in my life and the lives of others whom I love, yet still holding love for him in my heart. No matter what he did, he was my father. He helped create the person I am.