The fans of Borussia Dortmund are truly amazing. It is hard to describe what you feel when you play in front of them, the atmosphere they create not only on the yellow wall with its 25000-something fans jumping up and down a full 90-plus minutes of every game, no matter the score or the opponent.

At the same time the players around me almost make it an automatism to score goals. We have so much quality and speed on the pitch - the genius of players like Mario Gotze or Marco Reus has to lead to goals.

There are a lot of things to like about [Borussia Dortmund's fans] and the city of Dortmund as a whole.I like their honesty. And I like that my family and I can feel safe here. I don' t have to worry at all about my safety and their and my own safety. Believe me, in other countries I have made different experiences in that regard. All of this, too, has led to my decision to extend my contract until 2020, and I can imagine staying even longer.

Only Bayern Munich really have some sort of a guarantee to win if they only catch a good day. All the others need really good days to win. I like that.

Most of all I hope the tournament [The 2017 Africa Cup of Nations] will help unite our people [in Gabon]. My wish is to celebrate a big party all together.

I would love to have a race against Usain Bolt one day! It would certainly be a good challenge for me.

I've played in France. There, in many matches everybody is already happy if he can secure a point. Here, in Germany? Forget it! Everybody wants to win. The last-placed team in the standings would take any match with the ambition to win it. That makes it so hard, even for the best teams in the league.