AS Roma defender Mehdi Benatia is delighted with his goalscoring record this season.
Benatia is Roma's joint top scorer this season and reveals he "trained as a striker when I was a kid".
"I had my first kick of the ball at the age of five," he told the Corriere dello Sport.
"My father played for Evry, in the suburbs of Paris, where my contact with the football field was something natural.
"Initially I couldn't imagine that football would become my job and to be honest I really wasn't convinced that I could follow in my father's footsteps.
"At the age of seven I too entered into the Evry youth academy. I trained as a striker when I was a kid and every Sunday my father placed me in front of the goal to train me and my cousins on specific exercises.
"He prepared me to be a hitman. Who would've thought I would go on to become a defender? I didn't!"
