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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"FIFA president Blatter arrested in New York office," Neymar read the headline out loud. He grinned when he gave the newspaper to the next person across the aisle; Leo. "Like a song in my ear."
Leo chuckled, taking the paper and scanning the front page. "Please don't feel the need to sing it to us, though." Laughter followed his comment – everyone just knew what a horrible singer Neymar was.
"Haha. You're so funny, man," Neymar retorted dryly, not taking the words to heart; mainly because he was all too aware of his lack of singing talents himself. Didn't stop him from singing, though. Where was the fun in life if you didn't do the things that you like just because you were bad at them?
"I know, my love, but please don't prove a point now," Tamira said with a grin from the seat next to him. "The turbines are noisy enough already."
Neymar put a hand over his heart in mock shock, exclaiming, "Et tu, Brute!", to which Tamira could only roll her eyes.
It was the morning of the day after the Clásico match – which had ended in a tie; two goals for either side, actually – and the FC Barcelona (players, staff and families) was on their way back home. The airport had been full of paparazzi, which had made boarding the private plane somewhat time-consuming, but one couldn't hold their curiosity against them this time around. It wasn't every day that a football player had been integral to the arresting of one of the most powerful men in the world of sports.
"I still don't know if I can believe all this," Leo said over the noise of the airplane engines.
"You better!" Geri, from a row behind, snatched the paper from his hands, almost tearing them apart. He didn't care, though, because he rolled them up and hit the back of Leo's seat repeatedly. Leo leaned forward, glad that his teammate missed his head.
"That's FIFA for you," Geri went on. "Corrupt to the core! Thank God we have a badass in our midst." With that, he pointed the papers at Tamira. "That front page's way too harmless and does not do you any justice. They should've written something like... Blaugrana spy unmasks misogynistic fuckheads sabotaging the mixed gender initiative. Or something like that."
Tamira gave him an evaluating look. "You missed your calling as an investigative journalist," she commented dryly. "Great headline. A tad too long, though."
Of course he was speaking highly of her now. But it hadn't been too long ago that Geri had been this close to calling her several not so nice names because he'd thought she'd become a traitor to the "cause", as he'd put it. But after the match – when Tamira had told her teammates everything in a secluded part in the lobby (and with agent Pedro showing up shortly for an update) – he'd virtually started to speak a different language, admiring her for her bravery. From adversary to biggest fan, just like that. It left Tamira feel humbled and embarrassed half the time, but she did enjoy the uplifting words, happy to hear such praise from not only Geri, but the rest of her teammates as well. Flattery really did get you everywhere these days.
