golden blonde¹

family and film

something elena had not experienced at all was champions league qualification rounds. barcelona were always at the top of the table in their league, therefore they did not have to go through qualification. arsenal however, struggled to be at the top the past few seasons and had to go through qualification rounds for the champions league.

late september 2022
elena was on her way to recovery the next morning when she receives a call from jana. she put her headphones in as to not disturb lia and caitlin, who were talking in the front seat.

"hey jana, good morning to you."

"good morning elena, has patri or mapi called you yet?" she asks hurriedly.

the spaniard laughs easily, "no, no one has congratulated me yet for my wonderful assist," she jokes. when she doesn't get a response, her face falls. "jana? is everything okay back home?"

"elena, you have to know that they don't want us in this battle, for our own good." jana tries to find the right words, but it only leaves the younger girl more confused.

"jana, what on earth are you talking about?" elena switches to catalan, noticing that lia and caitlin had stopped their conversation.

"mapi and aitana don't want you, nor i to get involved. so when you accept the call up for the friendly against the united states and arrive in camp, it's going to be different."

"c'mon jana, you know i won't get called up. jorge has better options for pivot with patri playing there now."

"he doesn't have an option, he will call you up. and you have to accept it, this is your career el. so when you arrive in camp, you have to know that all of the barcelona girls will be backing you."

"well, of course, they're all spanish jana. you're making no sense right now. why have you called me to talk about a camp that's happening in three weeks?"

"there's going to be news coming out in a couple of days. no matter what, promise me this will not affect your performances, mapi wouldn't want that."

elena laughs nervously. "okay, yeah. i promise it won't. i've got to get training, wish the girls good luck today for me alright?"

"okay yes, bye sister. i love you."

"love you too." elena says ending the call and pulling her headphones out. she apologizes to the australian and swiss for interrupting their conversation. lia mutters something along the lines of it's fine.

"everything okay?" caitlin asks.

"yes, my sister is just being weird this morning." elena nods.

after recovery in the morning, elena heads to the cafeteria to eat something before their gym session in the afternoon. she settles on reading a news article out loud in english, whilst eating.

leah slides into the seat next to her with a plate of her own.

"hey fernandez, what are you reading?"

"um, it says new fish.. something.. discover in south australia." elena stutters out, showing the article title to the english defender.

"species, new fish species was discovered in australia. that's pretty cool."

"speech? what is a speech?"

"no, not speech, spe-cies. it's like a classification of a group. like you know how birds can be red or blue? it's a new type of fish.

"oh, that is cool, thank you."

"you played well yesterday, i didn't know you were a tucker though."