Lover II- ML

246. Play Your Own Game

The first knockout game was against Colombia and Mapi was glad she had fresh shin pads to protect her from the aggression this game will almost definitely bring.

Training had been good, calm and all of them were focused on the final stretch of this competition; the final week of the Olympics.

It had all gone very quickly, the games came thick and fast with other competitions keeping them entertained in their spare time.

Mapi had really gotten into the women's volleyball and made sure to keep up to date with how the British eventing team were doing in their competitions.

Jake had won gold in the team eventing on Kacey, something the world expected from the British team but was still celebrated as such a large achievement.

Mapi reposted Jake's story of him and Kacey with the medal, expressing her amazement and then she also she had to mention that she had ridden what was now an Olympic gold medal winning horse.

Kaia was also very overwhelmed by the achievement, for the whole day she was posting action photos from the competition, some throwbacks to her when she was eleven and sat on the stable floor with Kacey as a foal.

Kacey was her pride and joy who managed gold in her Olympic debut, that fed Mapi to do exactly the same and make Kaia just as proud.

So walking out with a tough South American team at their side, Mapi was determined not to falter in defence, she wanted a clean sheet and a dominant win.

But that came crashing down when the back of Spain's net rippled after twelve minutes of feisty football.

Colombia were being very aggressive, very rash in their challenges to not allow Spain chance to get their momentum up and build promising attacks.

It was good tactical play, but at the same time some of these challenges should've been blown for a foul.

The amount of times Aitana got her heels clipped, Jenni got an elbow to the head in the box and even the Spanish defenders had their legs slashed at by the pressing Colombian forwards.

But they didn't give in despite the frustration rising, they knuckled down and Patri scored just before halftime to tie the game up going in at the break.

Alejandro made sure to give them all a very harsh yet sympathetic reality check, that Colombia had taken them for a ride in the first half and they needed to be the dominant team going back out if they want to progress in this competition.

So that's what they were, they were dominant and gave back a little to match the aggression of the South Americans, even the playing field out enough to get the ball into the final third and find the killer ball for Irene to get her head to and put in the back of the net in the dying minutes.

They were through, a 2-1 win to take them into the semifinals against Brazil.

𑁍

The first day of training didn't include two of Barcelona's best, both Keira and Natalie were working on their moves away from the club and therefore were exempt from the preseason prep, they didn't pose in the new kits for photos or film little videos to hype the fans up for the new season.

They were inside with their agents, they were getting the final details done so Keira could go to Arsenal and Natalie could move to Bayern Munich.

Both Lucy and Kaia were saddened when they caught sight of Keira up in the meeting rooms through the windows, themselves running light drills to assess their fitness before the start of season tests and measurements are taken.