My mother used to have a shop in which she offered very colorful clothes. I liked that from my early days on.

When I arrive at our training ground at Borussia Dortmund, everybody could hear just that a few seconds before I can actually be seen. Everybody knows it's me. I love to hear the machine working.

Last season I scored 27 goals but still lost out against Robert Lewandowski. This season has started very well for me, but again I have some tough opponents, most notably with Anthony Modeste from FC Koln. I texted him the other day: "Keep calm, my friend." I am happy for him to be so successful. And in a certain way it even helps me. The better the other strikers are, the more I have to work to be to be ahead of them.

At Milan when I was younger, I worked a lot on the leg press because I'd lost a bit of my natural speed as my body was changing. I was growing too fast for the rest of my body to cope and I had some knee problems. I worked really hard in the gym to regain these fast sprints.

It was Thomas Tuchel's first season as coach and I played centrally always. The whole team had a great year, one that I enjoyed a lot. Our style has changed a bit, from trying to score within five seconds to a more calm and in some regard more educated style of play. We try to find the right moment - and then we explode.

[Didier] Drogba sent me a text message after I won the African Player of the Year award. It made me very happy.

I want to score goals in every match, as many as possible.