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.

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

We have our ambitions [in Dortmund Borussia], and of course I would love to win some titles after some years of finishing second or losing finals.

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.

Every goal is hard work, especially in such an excellent league as the Bundesliga; or even take the Champions League.

I was always sure the Bundesliga was the right choice for me. My first season was solid, if unspectacular, so maybe I would have preferred it not to be so hard at the beginning, but I've worked very hard to get to this point and want to get even better now.

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.