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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The match was coming to a close. Tamira couldn't be happier with the way things had worked out – the stadium was full to the brim, the chemistry between the players of the mixed team was great and even she and Neymar had managed to work together quite well. But that was more due to Leo being the best player and playmaker in the world; his passes were what made the goal by Neymar and her own goal (both shot in the first half) possible at all. Both were beautiful goals, though during half-time, Tamira wasn't below comparing Neymar's goal to the one he'd done at training – the one that looked easy on the eyes and great but could've very much also missed the goal due to Neymar's lack of curving.
She hadn't even meant it to be offensive when she'd said that, but as soon as it had been out, they'd started to argue about the quality of their goals. Enrique and Llorens had been quick to pull them apart and talk some sense into them before things could escalate, reminding them of the match that still needed to be played for another 45 minutes.
Unfortunately, those leading goals were all too soon equalized by the FC Valencia in the second half – their own defense hadn't been attentive enough after the lead.
So after exciting, wonderful, ridiculously hard (the guys just played a different pace, Tamira was reluctant to admit) and very trying 80 minutes (Neymar was going on her nerves even from way over the left side of the pitch), neither team had managed to score the winning goal.
Things took a turn when there was a hard foul on Rafinha, which interrupted the match for quite a few minutes. Tamira, having been on the right side were she and Rafa had been about to connect for a pass, immediately knew something was wrong the moment the Brazilian wouldn't stand up right away, determined to keep on playing. Instead, he clung at his foot, screaming bloody murder.
Immediately, she alerted the training staff and referee, and Neymar, who'd come over by then, was busy with getting the opposing team members to back off from calling out a dive and complain to the referee, keeping them at bay with the support of Leo and Andrés.
"That was a dive!" the Ivana Andrés, one of FC Valencia's female defenders, announced, clearly outraged. "We didn't even touch him!"
Tamira turned her fiery stare at her. She hadn't been the one committing the deed, but the moment she'd opened her mouth, Tamira saw red. "Does this look like a dive to you?" She pointed toward where Rafa was lying on the grass, still crying out in pain as the medical team examined the damage. "This is a charity match for crying out loud!" she continued. "There's no need to get this aggressive and hard with the tackles!"
She was about to push her back (Ivana had gotten dangerously close into her face), but arms suddenly held her back before she could so much as lay a finger on her. "Hey, you wanna risk a card as well? I already got a yellow for interfering, and I was just trying to keep them away! So chill!" Neymar hissed into her ear, pulling her back a few feet, away from the hustle that was going on. By now several players of opposing sides were creating quite the commotion, while Rafa was being carded off on a stretcher. When had things gone so out of control here?
