Will men and women ever be able to play football together?
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Ever since she started to play football professionally, Tamira Singer's dream has been to start a new football competition: the respective male and female first teams of a club form a n...
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„So, this woman from the gala," Neymar began to ask casually. "How's it going?"
He and his father were sitting at the breakfast table in the kitchen. Davi was already finished with eating and was now playing with his toys in the room next door; Neymar could hear is little boy imitate the roaring noises of what he could only assume to be dinosaurs; his son's latest obsession. Pai was studying the different online sites of various newspapers and web portals around the globe on his iPad that was lying on the table in front of him (where normal people usually had their plate with breakfast goodies). There was a frown on his father's face – apparently, there were still some websites clinging to the stupid "Neymira" ship.
After two weeks, Neymar didn't care anymore. The teasing by his friends, teammates and his sister had subsided and the media hadn't come up with anything new due to the fact that Neymar and Tamira weren't seeing each other – neither as a couple nor as teammates. And Neymar honestly wasn't too sad about the fact.
But that would change today, since the third and final training session for the mixed gender team was to be held in the afternoon. He rather not think about what it would be like – his father had made him promise to be the bigger man (or "person", as Rafaella liked to correct his words, being the feminist that she was at the moment) and he wasn't too keen on going through with it; mostly because he already saw Tamira make things difficult for him and really put him to the test.
"Pai?" he called for his father's attention, since he hadn't heard his son's question.
"Hm?" the older man said, still distracted by whatever he was reading.
"The woman? Emilia was her name, right? It's been a few weeks, I'm just wondering how things are going?"
His father didn't answer right away, still distracted by the tablet. There had been quite a bit of enquiries for interviews, partly because the mixed gender team news had gone around the globe, partly – and this was Brazil media mostly – because people were interested if there really was something going on between Neymar and Tamira. Since the club had forbidden both of them to post anything about it, people were left hanging and Pai was busy juggling the different enquiries and pick out the most serious ones.
Yet apart from the busy work of being his manager and taking care of the publicity side of things these past few weeks, his father had managed to go out with the woman from the gala a few times, usually getting home late at night, with a dazed expression and a goofy smile on his face.
Like the one he wore now, just because he thought of her, when he finally answered, "Things are going great, actually."
Neymar nodded, appreciating the woman for making his dad happy. He stood up, grabbed his empty plate and cup and put them in the dishwasher. Yes, he knew how to clean up after himself; some things just stick with you from growing up, no matter how much money you could spend on a house cleaner (which he had). "Good. You still haven't told me – is she someone's relative and if so, do I need to prepare myself for a confrontation in the locker room any time soon?"
