My Tunisia

Khalil Melliti has always known his future would lead him into the heart of Tunisia's love of football. "I've been mad about football since I was little. Right now I play for the best team in Tunisia, Esperance. My whole life is linked to football," says the 16-year-old Tunisian, who is the captain of the under-16 team of Esperance, a club that was founded in 1919 and has won the Tunisian league 27 times. It is Khalil's father whose passion has inspired and driven both him and his brother to pursue football, a choice that his mother Aida supports and resents in equal measure. "My family is passionate about football, so I had no choice but to follow them ... the one thing that gets on my nerves is that sometimes it completely dominates our personal life. My hobbies and my past time have been taken away by football," says Aida. His family even moved to central Tunis, close to Khalil's club and school, to make his life a little easier. "It was tough to abandon our own house but there is nothing more important than my children," says Aida. "Not cars or houses or money. First, my children must grow and find their place, then everything will come naturally."