The first time I met Leo Messi, I didn't know who he was, only that I couldn't believe the boots he was wearing. But he is like a brother to me. It was at the start of 2005, when I was with the Argentine under-17 squad and I saw him chatting with Ezequiel Garay and some other players about the boots he'd brought back from the U.S.A.
Ever since I started playing football, I've always taken the number 10 shirt.
My brother was an avid Stoke City fan and a good footballer. We shared a room, growing up, and the walls were covered with 1970s Stoke players, like Peter Shilton, Gordon Banks, and Jimmy Greenhoff.
It's difficult when you start to play football. My boots were much worse.
Football became my life at five or six. The earliest memory I have is of playing in my first boots, a pair of black and white Alan Balls. It was 1970, four years after the World Cup, and I scored three goals at school.
Football boots are very technical and have lots of specific requirements.
I tend to wear the moulds in training, but I'll always wear studs in games, as I feel like I get more grip.
The first pair of boots I remember owning were Puma Spiders - I still have them in a cupboard at home! They were fantastic boots. I was nine-years-old and I scored about 70 goals with them in a season.
In Ivory Coast it's very hard to have normal shoes, so just imagine football boots - they were considered a true luxury.
We've got our football where no one wears anything and the guys are in little shorts and they beat the crap out of each other, and they can catch it and they can kick it, and it's the only place it's played in the world.
When I was back at Barcelona, the boots I wanted to wear were Ronaldinho's. He had those Tiempos, gold and white, and I thought they would suit my style as a quicker player.
My first poster was Michael Owen. I used to just love how he scored goals.
I'd like to play in English football, especially for Manchester United.
My early memories are full of football talk around the house, of Dad standing on the terraces at Ayresome Park, of the occasional precious new pair of boots.
I've done a bit of football.
