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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It was as they had feared – the two did not get along.
Not on the pitch, mind you, because – thanks to Leo's magnificent passes – Neymar and Tamira worked their magic, even with her being on the unfamiliar side. She was doing better than she'd led on at her protest before the training match. She really was an excellent player.
Yes, the two of them were doing all right so far. They could do great even, but Enrique guessed they were going to have to work on that just like they had with the glorious trio of the men's team last season. There was just that "click" missing from the gameplay of his new front line.
Yes, they were doing all right.
But "all right" wasn't going to work, was it?
Llorens, the long-term trainer of the women's first team, was of the same opinion as Enrique. During the ongoing first training match at Joan Gamper, the two of them continued to speak to one another about this or that action happening on the field, suggesting possible moves, strategies – and the lack of chemistry.
"They're at it again," the old man now said with a heavy sigh.
Enrique also sighed and shook his head dejectedly as he watched Neymar and Tamira start a discussion about the latest pass that Leo had made in Tamira's direction and that Neymar had intercepted in order to make the goal from his (what he thought to be more beneficial) position. The action hadn't sat well with the young woman from Australia, which resulted in one rather uncomfortable realization: they both had a rather hot temper that needed only the slightest of sparks to make itself shown. Enrique already knew this from Neymar, but apparently Tamira too had a very short line of patience when it came to provocations in common. Or maybe it was something Neymar did specifically. Who knew with women, right?
By now, Leo and some of the other players were standing around them, trying to calm their tempers.
"But he didn't have the right to just take my ball!" Tamira said, angry and with a frown on her face.
Neymar grimaced and shook his head. "I had the better position for the goal, so get over it, will you? It's a team sport!"
"Oh, so you do know that it's a team sport! For a moment I was worried! And, what? You had the better position? I had an empty goal in front of me and Leo saw that! Which is why I got the pass, not you!"
"Can you two please, just please, stop it already?" Leo said, tired already with the way the two of them were behaving. Being one of the captains of the training team, it was his responsibility to make the players calm down. But usually that meant he had to be concerned about just one participant of the fight – not both. "This is not how this is going to work!"
