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.

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

I've worked really hard on getting into the box more and being closer to the goal, which I think has brought real benefits to my game. It's definitely improved my goal scoring.

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.

The moment my name was called [Africa's Footballer of the Year] was truly overwhelming and I was about to scream with joy.

Didier Drogba and Samuel Eto'o, two fantastic African footballers. So successful. And very nice characters as well. I got the luck to know them personally. They helped me a lot.

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.