#watching Barca with Emily

[awfcrusso]

Hello miss williamson

[pitchsidestories]

lovers II Keira Walsh x Williamson!Reader

masterlist I word count: 2468

a/n: Hi, we realized that it's our 100th oneshot which sounds absolutely wild, so enjoy. For the readers who wait for the Emily Fox fanfic it will come out next. <3

You were in love with Ibiza.

In love with the beaches and the sunshine, the palm trees and the blue of the ocean.

You were in love with the clubs and bars, your sister and her friends took you to.

But above all, you were in love with your sister’s best friend.

The afternoon sun painted the hotel room in soft golden light as you slipped into a short dress. You could still feel the salty air and the sun from earlier that day on your skin as you began applying mascara to your eyelashes. Except for a bit of hunger, you felt fully content.

“Ready for dinner? You look gorgeous by the way.“, Keiras voice said from behind you.

You hadn’t noticed her coming in.

You flinched, almost stabbing yourself in the eye with the mascara wand.

Keira smiled apologetically at your reflection in the mirror.

You watched as her gaze started to travel down your body, taking in every curve in your tight-fitting dress.

With a smile you turned towards her and bridged the gap between the two of you.

“Are you kidding? Look at you… Your curls are so pretty and soft.“, you whispered, gently running her fingers through her reddish brown hair.

You loved the way the salt water had restored Keiras natural hair texture.

“My curls? I just didn’t straighten my hair.“, she laughed.

Her cheeks flushed slightly, barely visible through the light sunburn on her skin.

Completely enamoured, you beamed at her: “I love it.“

You were about to lean forward to kiss her when someone cleared their throat behind you.

Your heart stopped while you pulled apart. You ran through possible explanations for this situation in your head, just in case you would turn around to face your sister.

Instead, Alex Scott watched the two of you with a knowing grin.

“You do? Oh hi, Alex.“, Keira greeted the former football player.

“Little Williamson is right though. She could have done something with fashion but…“, Alex said without finishing her thought.

You rolled your eyes, she had always tried to convince you to work in the fashion industry but you wouldn’t trade your job as an English teacher in Barcelona for anything in the world.

“She chose to teach people English in Spain and honestly, it was the best decision ever.“, you finished for Alex.

Keira laughed: “I agree with that.“

Leah appeared next to Alex in the doorway. Subconsciously, you tried to put more distance between yourself and Keira.

“Of course, you do, Kei. Because that way you can talk to someone in your mother tongue almost every day. How did the Catalan interview go again?“, your sister teased.

Her best friend released a tired groan: “Don’t remind me.“

Alex changed the subject, pointing with her thumb over her shoulder: “Now that everyone’s dressed up, let’s get some dinner in before we go clubbing.“

“Sounds like a good idea.”, you agreed in a good mood, the sea air made you hungry.

At the restaurant Keira studied the menu thoroughly before looking at you with an innocent smile on her lips.

“Everything here sounds so good, do you want to share?”, she asked.

“Sure.”, you replied happily. Above your heads the fairy lights were switched on and you could hear the waves crashing on to the shore in the background.

The romantic atmosphere was quickly disturbed by your older sister.

“Excuse me? I thought you’d share with me!”, she pouted, sending glances at the Barca player which could kill.

“What about your girlfriend? Doesn’t she want to share with you?”, Keira asked in return, cheeks flushed.

“Yes, Lee, no need to be that dramatic about it.”, Alex Greenwood intervened laughing.

“I’m not dramatic.”, Leah countered smirking.

“That’s just how she’s.”, you explained cheekily.

“Why don’t we order food for the table so we can all share?”, your girlfriend suggested hoping this would calm the Blonde Arsenal defender down.

“Yes, that’s perfect. I’m in.”, the two Alex’s declared grinning.

“Same, you too, Leah?”, you turned around to investigate your sister’s face, waiting for her reaction.

“Sure.”, she nodded, sounding much calmer already.

 “What about a first round of cocktails?”, Jess wanted to know.

“Please.”, Leah answered.

A few minutes later the drinks arrived at your table, beaming you toasted with her. “Cheers.”

“Cheers.”, she responded grinning.  

The sweetness and the alcohol sparked the desire in you to touch your lover’s curly hair again.

“Stop it.”, Keira demanded giggling.

“I’m not doing anything.”, you remarked in a not guilty tone.

“Yes, you’re. Stop it.”, she bit her lip nervously.

“Fine.”, you sighed defeated, quickly finishing your cocktail.

After the last sip you stood up smiling delighted at the other girls. “Girls, are we ready for the club now?”

“Let’s go.”, Alex Greenwood chirmed.

The sun was long gone now, the moon and the stars shown brightly as you and your sister former and current teammates joined the Ibizan night life.

Something your sister and you both shared was the passion for music. While Leah preferred to sing you would take every chance you could get to dance. Before Keira your first love has been rhythm and beats.

“Come on, Kei.”, Alex nudged the red-haired woman who admired you from the distance.

“I don’t dance. I’m here for the drinks.”, she waved the sports journalist off.

“But I do. Come on, Alex.”, Leah remarked cheerfully.

“Coming.“, Alex laughed and let the defender pull her into the direction of the dance floor.

The other Alex jumped up as well, following closely behind: “Hey, wait for me.“

You caught Keiras eye from across the room and danced your way over to her. You were not ready to stop yet but you also didn’t want to leave her alone.

Keira reached for your wrist with a laugh: “Stop twirling around, y/n.“

“Why?“, you asked, spinning out of her grasp.

“Just because.“

You stopped for a moment, studying her face. There was something serious and pleading in her eyes that you didn’t understand. You only wanted to continue dancing with your friends. “Keira…“

You interrupted yourself, taking in a sharp breath in surprise as two hands laid on your hips and spun you around.

A man in his mid-thirties and clearly drunk grinned at you. His gaze traveled down to your neckline while he asked you something that your brain didn’t seem to comprehend. Apparently he wanted you to dance with him but everything about him made clear that he had other things in mind than just dancing.

You froze in place, not sure if you felt disgusted or disgusting.

Just when you were about to say something, your sister squeezed between him and you and pushed him back: “Sorry, no. That’s my sister!“

“And she’s already taken.“, Keira added. You hadn’t noticed that Keira had gotten up from her seat as well.

Leahs head whipped towards her best friend: “What?“

“Uhm…“, you mumbled as you watched the man retreat with his hands raised in surrender.

You desperately tried to find a good reason to change the subject but you just couldn’t come up with one.

“Who is it, y/n? One of your colleagues or one of the Barca girlies?“, Leah asked, her voice tinted with anger.

“It’s…uhm…“, you started and forced yourself not to look at Keira. Lying would be so easy right now. But did you actually want to keep hiding?

Your sister got impatient: “Just tell me.“

“Keira.“, was all you could get out and prayed that you made the right choice.

The two best friends looked at each other. Keira nodded slowly: “It’s me.“

“Wait, you?! When? How? She’s my little sister!“ Leahs eyebrows furrowed in anger.

Keira shrugged, trying to keep her voice calm: “In Barcelona… it just happened.“

Your sister turned towards you with her jaw set: “We’ll talk about this tomorrow morning!“

She stormed off without waiting for an answer and you quietly wondered where she would go.

Keira and you ended the night there and went back to your hotel room.

You walked out on the balcony overlooking the ocean, Keira followed right behind you.

“She’s really mad.“, you said nervously into the night sky.

The midfielder wrapped her arms around you and rolled her eyes: “She can’t be mad about this.“

You knew she had a point.

“No, Lee is more upset about the fact that we didn’t tell her.“

“Still. I can talk with her if you want me to.”, Keira offered while you kept watching the waves come and go which was scarily similar to your older sister’s temper. Deep down you knew she would eventually calm down.

“No, I’ll do it, it’s fine.”, you assured the Barcelona player before kissing her temple softly.

For a moment she closed her eyes under your touch. “She’ll be fine.”, the midfielder whispered in a convinced tone as her lips touched yours in a heartfelt kiss.

“What was the kiss for?”, you raised an eyebrow at her curiously.

“For good luck.”, Keira replied smirking.

“But she said tomorrow so maybe we could just go inside and..”, you begun rambling.

“You think that’s a good idea?”, your girlfriend interrupted you with a doubtful look on her face.

“No, I’ll do it now.”, you sighed, knowing fully well that some things shouldn’t be put on hold. Although you’d miss the comforting hug of the midfielder who pretended to hate them but always made an exception for you.

Cautiously you stood at the entry of the hotel room your sister and her girlfriend were staying in. “Lee, can we chat outside?”

Without a word the older blonde got up and put on her shoes, signalling that she was ready to talk to you outside.

For a while the two of you walked silently on the sand which felt still warm under your naked feet.

“So, you and Keira, huh?”, Leah broke the silence, sounding more curious than mad this time.

“Yeah.”, you answered timidly.

“Since when?” the defender continued asking.

“We got closer when she came to Barcelona.”, you confessed.

“That was forever ago.”, she noted slightly hurt by your reply.

“Yes, but we just started dating a few months ago.”, you added quickly. This much was true. Undoubtedly, you always had a soft spot for your sister’s best friend. The more time you two spend together, the more it became obvious that there was more than just friendship.

“And you didn’t tell me.”, Leah swallowed hard through that realization.

“You didn’t ask me.”, you reminded her.

“If you’re dating my best friend? How was I supposed to know.”, she retorted.

“No, in general, it’s mostly about you when you call me.”, you countered.

“I didn’t realize that. I’m sorry. But I thought you’d tell me such things.”, the defender apologized, her skin despite the tan turned pale.

“It’s okay. I guess we weren’t great sisters for each other recently.”, you admitted guiltily.

Leah nodded in reluctant agreement: “I guess we weren’t.“

There was a moment of silence between the two of you, not uncomfortable but thoughtful.

“But we could do better now.“, you said determinedly,

Your sister stopped walking. You only realized that wasn’t on your side anymore after a few more steps.

You turned towards her and caught her staring at you.

“Y/n?“, she asked.

“Yes?“

“Are you happy?“

You smiled at her: “Very.“

“With Kei?“

“Yes.“, you confirmed again.

Leah studied your face for a moment, searching for any indication of a lie before she finally nodded once: “Okay.“

“Okay?“, you echoed with hopefulness in your voice. You didn’t want to fight with your sister. You wanted her and Keira in your life.

Leah kicked up some sand with her shoe: “Yes, okay. I think I can live with that.“

“Good.“, you beamed and slowly continued your walk, waiting for your sister to take her place by your side again.

You thought your talk was over when your sister suddenly spoke up again: “Y/n?“

You looked at her, signalling her to continue.

“Just because you live a life outside of the public eye doesn’t mean I’m not interested in your life or I’m not proud of you.“

Her words caught you by surprise. You frowned at her in confusion. “Wait, you’re proud of me?“

“Why do you sound so surprised? Obviously I’m proud of you.“

You stared down at the fine sand under your feet: “Sorry.“

Another break in your conversation arose. Apparently, struggling to express your emotions properly ran in your family.

“Not everyone has the bravery to go abroad for work… I would not.“, Leah continued.

You looked back up at her: “Really?“

She nodded slowly: “You know how much I love home. And Arsenal. I just couldn’t.“

Hearing this filled you with pride but at the same time, you had to suppress a smile because you really couldn’t imagine your sister anywhere else.

“True, you’re such a homebody.“, you laughed.

Your sister smirked and gave you a small shrug: “See, we’re just very different.“

“Yes, but that’s okay.“, you assured her. You could feel the tension dissolve slowly.

Leah raised an eyebrow: “I will still have to talk to Keira though.“

You let out a groan: “Oh no, not the big sister talk.“

“Oh yes, even for my best friend.“

“Fine, but try and be nice, okay?“, you asked innocently.

“Of course.“

“Thank you.“

She reached over and ruffled through your blonde hair: “Anything for my little sister.“

You tried to get revenge. You two were laughing like children while you chased her down the beach.

You never heard anything about their talk. Both Keira and Leah refused to tell you anything and stubbornly maintained their silence. You didn’t care anyway. They seemed closer than ever and that was all that mattered to you.

The next days were spend at the beach, enjoying the sun and the refreshing coolness of the sea.

“No. I’m not going into the water.“ Keira shook her head determinedly. She had spend the morning straightening her hair but to you, that was not a reason to miss out on swimming.

“Come on.“ You impatiently pulled at her arm.

Leah appeared on Keiras other side, pushing her forward. “You better go now.“

Together you barrelled towards the sea, falling over each as soon as you reached the water. The rest of your friend group burst out laughing,

Keira pushed her now wet hair back. It started to curl at the ends already.

“I hate you Williamsons!“, she laughed.

You kissed her cheek: “No, you don’t.“

“Not really, no.“, Keira admitted and pulled you towards her by your waist to kiss you.

Leah grimaced in disgust: “Okay, but you don’t have to kiss in front of me.“

“Stop complaining.“, you rolled your eyes.

Keira grinned at her: “You better get used to it, Lee.“

[mrchiipchrome]

Character Introductions

(yes, I know I should've done this before the first part was posted but I didn't so y'all get it now)

-------------------

Nika Mühl as herself

Height: 5’11

Age: 20

School/Team: University of Connecticut (UConn), UConn Women’s Basketball Team (#10), Croatia (#10)

Nicknames: Mühl, Love, Secretary Of Defense, Pookie (only by Paige)

Nationality: Croatian

Instagram: nika.muhl

Alt: nikalovesbball

“I don’t like her like that, we’re just friends, nothing more.”

“I don’t know what I want yet, but I do know that I want it with you. Not someone like you, it’s you that I want.”

“You know, I was always a Chelsea fan.”

You as Yourself (shhh, just imagine.)

Height: Tall as fuck

Age: 18

School/Team: Harvard, Harvard Women’s Soccer Team (#10), England WNT (#10/2+8)

Nicknames: Grumpy, Kid/Kiddo, Troll Child (Leah), Baby, Tiny (only by Paige), Captain

Nationality: English

Instagram: y/n.y/l/n

Alt: norflondonforever

“North London forever, whatever the weather, these streets are our own.”

“I want a beach house in Barcelona, with the most amazing view of the water. And maybe a dog, or a cat. And I want to run a small surf shop at the corner of the beach, hidden away from everything. That’s what my legacy will be, just you me and our beach house in Barca.”

“Sorry coach, I gotta go see ‘bout a girl.”

Gabbi Broussard as Emma 'Em' Whitmore

Height: 5’9

Age: 20

School/Team: Harvard, Harvard Women’s Soccer Team (#18), USWNT (#28)

Nicknames: Em, Emily, Emma Hayes (only by you to annoy her), Ugly 

Nationality: American/Canadian

Instagram: emwhit18

Alt: thebetterwhitmore

“Cal’s not scary, he looks like the rat from Flushed Away.”

“I think you need to stop thinking about what everyone else wants and start thinking about what you want. This situation, it’s not your fault that you caught feelings, but it is your fault that you’re pushing her away, so man the fuck up and do the right thing.”

“Will you stop singing that already?”

Callum Turner as Callum 'Cal' Whitmore

Height: 6’4

Age: 23

School/Team: University of Connecticut (UConn), UConn Men’s Basketball Team(#26), US Men’s Basketball(#22)

Nicknames: Cal, Gollum, The Rat from Flushed Away

Nationality: American/Canadian

Instagram: callumwhitmore

Alt: nottheratfromflushedaway

“I don’t look like the fucking rat from Flushed Away, stop telling people that.”

“Em, dad called, he said shut up.”

“Watching you trying to flirt is the single most embarrassing thing I’ve ever done.”

Robert Sean Leonard as Coach 'Dad' Daniels

Height: 6’0

Age: 66

School/Team: Head Coach of Harvard Women’s Soccer Team

Nicknames: Coach, Dad, Coach Dad, Pops, Ancient Being

Nationality: American

Instagram: headcoachdaniels

Alt: doesn’t have one, he’s too much of an old fart

“It’s called intermittent fasting, look it up, you should try it sometime.”

“No, for the last time, me and Coach Hansen aren’t secretly married with two dogs, you all need less free time to come up with theories like that, this isn’t dead poet’s society. Extra training sessions the whole week out.”

“Are those hickeys? Okay ladies, when you want to have sex make sure to cover up the evidence after, I do not need to know more about your intimate lives than I already do.”

Ethan Hawke as Coach Hansen

Height: 5’11

Age: 62

School/team: Harvard Men’s Soccer Team Head Coach

Nicknames: Coach Daniels’ Husband, Dad #2, Mr. Sir

Nationality: American/British

Instagram: headcoachhansen

Alt: an old fart like his husband, so no alt for him

“So you kids thought you’d get a different answer from me than from Coach Daniels? Why are you kids so incessant on trying to find out if we’re together or not.”

“Don’t tell anyone, but I kissed Coach Daniels last night. It was like something straight out of a movie, something so poetic about it.”

“This is Buddy, me and Coach Daniels adopted him so that he could be our mascot. No other reason.”

Paige Bueckers as herself

Height: 6’0

Age: 20

School/Team: University of Connecticut (UConn), UConn Women’s Basketball Team (#5), USA Women’s Basketball Team (#5)

Nicknames: PBuckets, PB&J, The Third Jonas Brother

Nationality: American

Instagram: paigebueckers

Alt: p5buckets

“I’ll beat you on Fifa all day every day.”

“God Nika, admit it, you like her. I can see it from a mile away and this thing you’re doing, this back and forth, will they won’t they, is going to hurt you both in the end. All I’m suggesting is that you evaluate what you want from this relationship and then take it from there.”

“I’m always right, it’s scientifically impossible for me to be wrong.”

Leah Williamson as herself

Height: 5’7

Age: 25

School/Team: Arsenal Women’s Team (#6), England WNT (#6/8/5)

Nicknames: Lee, Will, Spurs Nr 1 Fan, Oldie, Capi

Nationality: English

Instagram: leahwilliamsonn

Alt: will.i.am.son

“I’M NOT A SPURS FAN, STOP SAYING THAT.”

“Y’know in all the time I’ve known you kid, I’ve never seen you this enamoured with someone, you’re so in love it’s making me sick.”

“You’re like the little sister I never had.”

Lucy Bronze as herself

Height: 5’7

Age: 30

School/Team: FC Barcelona Femení (#15), England WNT (#2)

Nicknames: Lucia, Robert, Luce, Prehistoric Being, Dad

Nationality: English/Portuguese

Instagram: lucybronze

Alt: bronzesilvergold

“Ugh, the ladies just love me don’t they.”

“I’m down with the lingo, I’ve got so much rizz that the boomers come running. Cowabunga.”

“Love is…love is effortless, it makes you feel all jittery and when you’re around them you feel like you can do anything. You’ll know it once you feel it kid, don’t try to rush the process, let it wash over you like the waves at the beach.”

Everyone else as themselves, also the other's alt instagrams will explained when they appear

[baekhvuns]

Hey bestie, RM defeated Barca in La Liga and Copa del Rey 11:1, 8:2 as well 😭 wtf was going on then, teams used pull such big numbers?! It still happens from time to time, but it seemed much more common in the 40s/50s. Bayern is on some hard shit for sure, they got the power. It's funny that Borussia can defeat Bayern, but they're still less known and don't do as well overall.

Zidane should have never left RM, man got us 3 CL wins!!!

I didn't expect the PSG x Al Nassr to go easy, but from what I've seen it was definitely personal 👁👁

I saw the Chelsea news, they need to do something because TEN PLACE in the Premier League??? And Liverpool 8? I told you, this is alternate reality, because Arsenal 1, Newcastle 3. Juve 10 in A Serie now 🙉

Also can I just say him and Busquets and then Pique were always my least favourite Barca players, but I didn't expect THIS

I don't know if I'll be able to feel bad for Charles, but I can understand that he and Harry are very different people who show emotions differently.

Honestly, SM sent Kai to weird Euro festivals, Exo and Taemin were in Berlin once, Shinee were in London. I heard NCT's concerts aren't selling as well as predicted, because of the prices. A whole mess. SuperM sold some of the questionable songs to me, idk why GOT isn't doing it. Tbh I understand BoA's disappointment and I'm pretty sure SM's shitty promo is part of the problem, but also consider this... the song and the MV sucks odhshwhrjabshsgahsvaha. Not her fault ofc, but yeah. Much ado about nothing

Oh you started iiiit, the beginning is a frustrating rideeeee. Eunhyuk is so sweet, but I hope he tells her soon. There were subtle hints from the beginning, him only having one earplug on and "ignoring" her (boy just couldn't hear 💔), in one chapter they were listening to heavy metal and he went "it's relaxing" and girlie went "????" 😭

Yes VHS (ancient times), I used to watch the first two HP movies religiously as a child! Ah yes Oppenheimer's cast! Miss Flo, Emily, Rami too... omg I totally forgot about that Adeline movie, but I watched it yes! I also liked Michiel in The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society with Lily James

One thing you need to know is that snakes aren't slimy, the texture of their skin depends on the species, it's soft and glossy, but a bit rough if the skin is more scale-like, it's honestly hard to explain. When I volunteered in Australia I had this corn snake friend who would wrap himself around my leg

That's what I've been saying, Pique was always an asshole and it's not just me being petty (well that too skshsjhdjsjsks), I never understood why Shakira got with him. 12 years??? Glad they didn't marry

Omg when CB called Ailee a cornball? But tbh I find it hard to believe Ailee didn't know about him, I remember seeing something about it 🙄

Yes, Baek, it's the colonialism <3 I always hated when I searched London and it showed me Canada?! The colonisers just plagiarised the names and called it a day. Googled Brampton and got whiplash lol

Can Hwa be my uncle and give me money 🤲🏻

Omg that Sehun tweet is my man Doyun! From the webtoon I ranted to you about, because it has an unnecessary love triangle and 3728 misunderstandings

Hoshi getting a sugar d*dd* lol, work I guess

Ohhh that Yeo art. We'll never see such long hair on him HA HA HA (pain)

Hwa usually looks soft barefaced, but he looked like such a bitch that day lmaooooo, yes bad boy. And That's why he is serving every time, he gets the best selection of clothes! - DV 💖

hello!!

Hey bestie, RM defeated Barca in La Liga and Copa del Rey 11:1, 8:2 as well 😭 wtf was going on then, teams used pull such big numbers?! It still happens from time to time, but it seemed much more common in the 40s/50s. Bayern is on some hard shit for sure, they got the power. It's funny that Borussia can defeat Bayern, but they're still less known and don't do as well overall.

im not HEARING ANY OF IT BFBDBD YOO UR RIGHT,, what was going on in the 40’s-80’s like 18-6’s and 10-0’s????? maybe the fields were smaller but damn, how easy was it back in the day 😭😭 bayern are monsters, im convinced they do some pogba witchcraft before matches bc how tf???? no yeah, borussia the only one who can defeat them properly yet we are blind when it comes to that club <3 rightfully so tbh <3

Zidane should have never left RM, man got us 3 CL wins!!! /// I didn't expect the PSG x Al Nassr to go easy, but from what I've seen it was definitely personal 👁👁

im seeing ancelotti being scouted by brazilian national team, which if he agrees (def won’t) would mean zidane rm 2.0 aND THEN HE CAN DO HIS MAGIC,, but apparently zidane might go psg, tbh he should, he can keep psg’s main ego in check,,, him messi and ney would actually be mAD

so personal that bro got punched by his own ex teammate 😭😭😭 i loved every bit of pettiness in it <3 the way psg we’re not even serious and roaming around and cr7 was playing like it’s his last fhwndhsj the biggest surprise / shock was the bollywood meet and greet so random???

I saw the Chelsea news, they need to do something because TEN PLACE in the Premier League??? And Liverpool 8? I told you, this is alternate reality, because Arsenal 1, Newcastle 3. Juve 10 in A Serie now 🙉

FBWKFBWKJCJCJC ITS SO EMBARRASSING LIKE WHAT WENT WRONG 😭😭😭 need chelsea to pick it up or pACK IT UP, arsenal and man city’s match is gonna be nuts,,, haaland v saka??? want arsenal to lose on purpose fbwkhfkw

Also can I just say him and Busquets and then Pique were always my least favourite Barca players, but I didn't expect THIS

NAH LITERALLY always had certain vibes from him, tho a great player,, the vibes were off maybe bc his eyes have this very naughty cleverish stare and was kind of unsettling AND NOW THIS IS MESSED,, the victim also refused whatever money he tried to pay her off with + he changed his testimony like 3 times and hers stayed the same,,, video evidence of club too apparently jail deserved,, hoping busquet’s leaves this summer

I don't know if I'll be able to feel bad for Charles, but I can understand that he and Harry are very different people who show emotions differently.

yeaaahh it’s tbh kinda annoying to hear him say crap about charles when bro did his best to be the best father to him, worked for will why not harry 😭😭😭my kid saying that to me, id be fuRIOUS

Honestly, SM sent Kai to weird Euro festivals, Exo and Taemin were in Berlin once, Shinee were in London. I heard NCT's concerts aren't selling as well as predicted, because of the prices. A whole mess. SuperM sold some of the questionable songs to me, idk why GOT isn't doing it. Tbh I understand BoA's disappointment and I'm pretty sure SM's shitty promo is part of the problem, but also consider this... the song and the MV sucks odhshwhrjabshsgahsvaha. Not her fault ofc, but yeah. Much ado about nothing

YEAH !!! YEAH !!! i think the most sm sent their groups FULLY outside was during like 2014-2015 era,, also bc sm was innovative at that time w music and music videos + promo,, sucks to see how they’ve become now,,, did not know about the nct thing! damn their seats are $$$$ and i thought blackpink’s were the expensive-est damn that much money for what 😭😭😭 (bp’s contract renewal is so funny bc why is it like football transfer contracts 😭😭)

i also think the way they have GOT promo kinda made their hype go down,, esp the sm town concert where they dropped the full stage performance before the mv + song’s release and the somewhat of a hype it was died down VERY QUICKLY,,, at least superm had a chemistry to show even if they were completely diff,, their song cohesion is nice unlike the gUGUGUGUGUGUGU yEAH the song is a no no, the mv looks like snsd’s you think mv but yassified 😭😭

Oh you started iiiit, the beginning is a frustrating rideeeee. Eunhyuk is so sweet, but I hope he tells her soon. There were subtle hints from the beginning, him only having one earplug on and "ignoring" her (boy just couldn't hear 💔), in one chapter they were listening to heavy metal and he went "it's relaxing" and girlie went "????" 😭

I DID AND WHEN HE APPEARED FBWMDKW SCREAMED AND WENT FOR A WALK INSIDE MY HOUSE 😭😭😭 STOPPPPP THATS SO SAD 😭😭😭 NOT RELAXINGJWJVCJC

Yes VHS (ancient times), I used to watch the first two HP movies religiously as a child! Ah yes Oppenheimer's cast! Miss Flo, Emily, Rami too... omg I totally forgot about that Adeline movie, but I watched it yes! I also liked Michiel in The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society with Lily James

anon, ur a fossil BFWMBDWMJCCK THE FIRST TWO ARE SO NEAR AND DEAR TO MY HEART,,, just being introduced to everyone and everything about the word magic ✨🤌🏻 the things i would do to wanna see that movie again for the very first time,,,, oppenheimer is def def going to be a blockbuster! cillian, rami, robert d jr, emily 😩😩 matt damon AND DEVON BOSTICK????? WIMPY KID???? this is like avengers but better omg,,, we need blake back idc idc her movies are so top tier >>> michiel is so fine, he’s my token white man <3 him in the haunting of the hill house too!!!! he chooses his movies really well!

One thing you need to know is that snakes aren't slimy, the texture of their skin depends on the species, it's soft and glossy, but a bit rough if the skin is more scale-like, it's honestly hard to explain. When I volunteered in Australia I had this corn snake friend who would wrap himself around my leg

i am fucking sorry, it would fucking do what.

That's what I've been saying, Pique was always an asshole and it's not just me being petty (well that too skshsjhdjsjsks), I never understood why Shakira got with him. 12 years??? Glad they didn't marry /// Omg when CB called Ailee a cornball? But tbh I find it hard to believe Ailee didn't know about him, I remember seeing something about it 🙄

no bc the way it was an open secret that he’d keep cheating on her??? found this on a reddit post and damn,, FOR 12 YEARS AND TWO KIDS U SPENT WITH HIM GOD DAMNIT SHAKIRA 😭😭😭 usually would take things from reddit as a grain of salt, but if it’s pique it’s true

HE DID???? NO WAY DHWJDHAKHDSK no srs her saying she doesn’t know him is like meghan markle saying she didn’t know who harry was, LIKE BRO AILEE UR FROM COLORADO 😭😭😭

Yes, Baek, it's the colonialism <3 I always hated when I searched London and it showed me Canada?! The colonisers just plagiarised the names and called it a day. Googled Brampton and got whiplash lol

IT SHOWS U CAN??? LMFAOOOO 😭😭😭 we are so trapped in this colonialist era, we’re never getting rid of this 😭😭 the Liverpool thing really shocked me fbwndbjccj yeah…bramptons…like the birmingham / bradford of canada

Can Hwa be my uncle and give me money 🤲🏻/// Omg that Sehun tweet is my man Doyun! From the webtoon I ranted to you about, because it has an unnecessary love triangle and 3728 misunderstandings

can i be his niece’s aunt 🤲🏻 IS HE??? 👁👁 did u end up finishing the webtoon??

Hoshi getting a sugar d*dd* lol, work I guess /// Ohhh that Yeo art. We'll never see such long hair on him HA HA HA (pain)

LMFAOOOO 😭😭😭 hoshi x usher collab dropping soon u just know it too,,, THE WAY ATEEZ NEED TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT GOING LONG HAIRED, ALL OF THEM, NEED TO GO LONG HAIRED GIVE US BIG BANG FANTASTIC BABY

Hwa usually looks soft barefaced, but he looked like such a bitch that day lmaooooo, yes bad boy. And That's why he is serving every time, he gets the best selection of clothes! - DV 💖

HE REALLY DID LOOK LIKE A BITCH 😭😭😭 but a bad one, his stoic face would be so perfect for runways, with long coats and hands in his pockets,,, the day he get’s with a brand is the day my dreams will begin to come true bfmwbddn

anon…🧍🏻‍♀️🧍🏻‍♀️ basic manners...morals??

HE 😭😭😭

[thegreatpumpkin11]

To the anon asking about why the board members resigned, I accidentally deleted your ask. 🤦🏽‍♀️ These articles should help you understand why:

Thank you to @rooroadster for sending me the top article!

[sttrawberries]

Get to know you better tag

I was tagged by @ciaoragno @capelli-di-merda and @joondlxnx , thank you💕

Tag 9 people: i don’t really know who should i tag so i apologise if you’re already been tagged @ayellowcurtain @contrabbandieri @hauntedfinnick @nori-sava @eleonorafrancesca @fyeahfandomtrash @air-bison-yip-yip @incantieleonora @teamnick 

Favourite colour: i don’t think i have one, i’m always having like little times where i'm obsessed with a specific colour does that make sense? you can say i really like yellow at the moment

Lipstick or Chapstick: both, but i prefer lipstick, normally on shades of red or dark nude lipsticks

Top 3 ships (atm): incantava (obviously), martin and simone (from the rain, currently watching s2) and lucifer and chloe (just finished season 4)

Last song: i’m currently listening to Will You? by Emilie Kahn (i just found the cutest playlist from spotify, kind of like a chill vibe<3)

Last movie: I haven’t been watching a lot of movies on these days but two weeks ago (i think) i went to see John Wick 3: Parabellum and i loved it

Currently reading: for myself nothing at the moment, but for school i started reading Life is a dream by Pedro Calderón de la Barca

[thebookwormsnest]

Ho controllato il New York Times. Ho controllato il Telegraph. Ho controllato Le Monde. Ho controllato la BBC. Ho confrontato le proposte delle migliori case editrici italiane. Ho setacciato mezzo internet per poter stilare una lista al contempo più completa e più varia possibile.

E, alla fine, ce l'ho fatta.

Clicca su "Continua a leggere" per scoprire l'elenco completo dei duecento libri da leggere prima di morire! 

I DUECENTO LIBRI DA LEGGERE PRIMA DI MORIRE: L'ELENCO

(IN ORDINE ALFABETICO)

1984 – George Orwell

1Q84 – Haruki Murakami

A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens

A ciascuno il suo – Leonardo Sciascia

A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry

A me le guardie! – Terry Pratchett

A sangue freddo – Truman Capote

Alice nel Paese delle Meraviglie – Lewis Carroll

Alla ricerca del tempo perduto – Marcel Proust

Altri libertini – Pier Vittorio Tondelli 

Amabili resti – Alice Sebold

Amore e Psiche – Apuleio

Anna dai capelli rossi – Lucy Maud Montgomery

Anna Karenina – Lev Tolstoj

Artemis Fowl – Eoin Colfer

Ayla figlia della Terra – Jean Auel

Bar sport – Stefano Benni

Black Beauty: autobiografia di un cavallo – Anna Sewell

Bleak House – Charles Dickens

Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh

Buchi nel deserto – Louis Sachar 

Buona apocalisse a tutti! – Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman

Caino e Abele – Jeffrey Archer

Canto di Natale – Charles Dickens

Casa Desolata – Charles Dickens

Cent'anni di solitudine – Gabriel García Márquez

Charlotte's Web – EB White

Cime tempestose – Emily Brontë

Comma 22 – Joseph Heller

Cristo si è fermato ad Eboli – Carlo Levi

Cuore – Edmondo de Amicis

Cuore di tenebra – Joseph Conrad

David Copperfield – Charles Dickens

Delitto e castigo – Fëdor Dostoevskij

Diario – Anne Frank

Dieci piccoli indiani – Agatha Christie

Dio di illusioni – Donna Tartt

Don Chisciotte della Mancia – Miguel de Cervantes

Dracula – Bram Stoker

Dune – Frank Herbert

Emma – Jane Austen

Fahrenheit 451 – Ray Bradbury

Favole al telefono – Gianni Rodari

Finzioni – Borges

Frankenstein – Mary Shelley

Furore – John Steinbeck

Gente di Dublino – James Joyce

Germinale – Emile Zola

Gita al faro – Virginia Woolf

Gli indifferenti – Alberto Moravia

Gormenghast – Mervyn Peake

Grandi speranze – Charles Dickens

Guerra e pace – Lev Tolstoj

Guida galattica per autostoppisti – Douglas Adams

Harry Potter – J. K. Rowling

Ho un castello nel cuore – Dodie Smith

I Buddenbrook – Thomas Mann

I cercatori di conchiglie – Rosamunde Pilcher

I Dolori del Giovane Werther – J. W. Goethe

I figli della mezzanotte – Salman Rushdie

I fiori del male – Charles Baudelaire

I fratelli Karamazov – Fedor Dostoevskij

I Malavoglia – Giovanni Verga

I Miserabili – Victor Hugo

I pilastri della terra – Ken Follett

I Promessi Sposi – Alessandro Manzoni

I Tre Moschettieri – Alexandre Dumas

Il barone rampante – Italo Calvino

Il bianco e il nero – Malorie Blackman

Il buio oltre la siepe – Harper Lee

Il Cacciatore di Aquiloni – Khaled Hosseini

Il canto del cielo – Sebastian Faulks

Il Codice da Vinci – Dan Brown

Il Colore Viola – Alice Walker

Il Commissario Maigret – George Simenon

Il Conte di Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas

Il diario di Bridget Jones – Helen Fielding

Il Dio delle piccole cose – Arundhati Roy

Il dottor Jekyll e Mr. Hyde – Robert Louis Stevenson

Il dottor Zivago – Boris Pasternak

Il fu Mattia Pascal – Luigi Pirandello

Il Gattopardo – Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa

Il giardino dei Finzi-Contini – Giorgio Bassani

Il giardino segreto – Frances Hodgson Burnett

Il giornalino di Gian Burrasca – Vamba

Il giovane Holden – J. D. Salinger

Il grande Gatsby – Francis Scott Fitzgerald

Il leone, la strega e l'armadio – C. S. Lewis

Il maestro e Margherita – Bulgakov

Il mago – John Fowles

Il Mandolino del Capitano Corelli – Louis De Berniere

Il mondo nuovo – Aldous Huxley

Il Nome della Rosa – Umberto Eco

Il Padrino – Mario Puzo 

Il paradiso degli orchi – Daniel Pennac

Il passaggio segreto – Enid Blyton

Il Piccolo Principe – Antoine De Saint-Exupery

Il potere e la glori – Graham Greene

Il Processo – Franz Kafka

Il Profeta – Kahlil Gibran

Il profumo – Patrick Süskind

Il ragazzo giusto – Vikram Seth

Il ritratto di Dorian Gray – Oscar Wilde

Il Rosso e il Nero – Stendhal

Il signore degli anelli – J. R. R. Tolkien

Il signore della magia – Raymond E. Feist

Il signore delle mosche – William Golding

Il vecchio e il mare – Ernest Hemingway

Il velo dipinto – W. Somerset Maughan

Il vento tra i salici – Kenneth Grahame

In culo al mondo – Antonio Lobo Antunes 

Io, robot – Isaac Asimov

Jane Eyre – Charlotte Brontë

Katherine – Anya Seton

Kitchen – Banana Yoshimoto

La casa degli spiriti – Isabel Allende

La ciociara – Alberto Moravia 

La collina dei conigli – Richard Adams

La coscienza di Zeno – Italo Svevo

La Divina Commedia – Dante Alighieri

La donna in bianco – Wilkie Collins

La fabbrica di cioccolato – Roald Dahl

La famiglia Winshow – Johnathan Coe

La fattoria degli animali – George Orwell

La fattoria delle magre consolazioni – Stella Gibbons

La fiera delle vanità – William Makepeace Thackeray

La lettera scarlatta – Nathaniel Hawthorne

La luna e i falò – Cesare Pavese

La Storia – Elsa Morante

La trilogia della città di K – Agosta Kristof

La verità sul caso Harry Quebert – Joel Dicker

La versione di Barney – Mordecai Richler

L'alchimista – Paulo Coelho

L'amore ai tempi del colera – Gabriel García Márquez

L'arte della guerra – Sun Tzu

L'arte di essere felici – Arthur Schopenhauer 

Le affinità elettive – Goethe

Le avventure di Alice nel Paese delle Meraviglie – Lewis Carroll

Le Avventure di Pinocchio – Collodi

Le Avventure di Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Le Cronache del Ghiaccio e del Fuoco – George R. R. Martin

Le notti bianche – Fedor Dostoevski

L'eleganza del riccio – Muriel Barbery

Lessico Familiare – Natalia Ginzburg

Lettera a un bambino mai nato – Oriana Fallaci

L'insostenibile leggerezza dell'essere – Milan Kundera

L'isola del tesoro – Robert Louis Stevenson

Lo strano caso del cane ucciso a mezzanotte – Mark Haddon

Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov

L'ombra del vento – Carlos Ruiz Zafon

L'ombra dello scorpione – Stephen King

L'opera completa di Shakespeare

Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert

Mattatoio n. 5 – Kurt Vonnegut 

Memorie di Adriano – Marguerite Yourcenar

Memorie di una geisha – Arthur Golden

Middlemarch – George Eliot

Moby Dick – Herman Melville

Morty l'apprendista – Terry Pratchett

Niente di nuovo sul fronte occidentale – Remarque

Night watch – Terry Pratchett

Noi, i ragazzi dello zoo di Berlino – Christiane F.

Non ora, non qui – Erri De Luca

Norwegian Wood – Haruki Murakami 

Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson

Oceano mare – Alessandro Baricco

Odissea – Omero

Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens

Opinioni di un clown – Heinrich Boll

Orgoglio e pregiudizio – Jane Austen

Pastorale americana – Philip Roth

Persuasione – Jane Austen

Piccole donne – Louisa May Alcott

Possession – AS Byatt

Preghiera per un amico – John Irving

Quel che resta del giorno – Kazuo Ishiguro

Queste oscure materie – Philip Pulman

Racconto di due città – Charles Dickens

Rebecca, la prima moglie – Daphne du Maurier

Ritorno a Brideshead – Evelyn Waugh

Se questo è un uomo – Primo Levi

Shining – Stephen King

Siddharta – Hermann Hesse

Sostiene Pereira – Tabucchi

Storia di una gabbianella e del gatto che le insegnò a volare – Luis Sepulveda

Suite francese – Irene Nemirovsky

Sulla strada – Jack Kerouac 

Tess dei d'Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy 

The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton

The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks

Tre Uomini in Barca – Jerome K. Jerome

Uccelli di rovo – Colleen McCullough

Ulisse – James Joyce

Un Uomo – Oriana Fallaci

Una città come Alice – Nevil Shute

Uomini e topi – John Steinbeck

Via col vento – Margaret Mitchell

Via dalla pazza folla – Thomas Hardy

Vita di Pi – Yann Martel

Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne

Mi sembra strano che autori come Baudelaire, Wilde o Shakespeare siano stati citati un'unica volta, così come il Diario di Anna Frank o Ulisse di Joyce - che per carità possono piacere o non piacere, ma sono comunque importanti dal punto di vista storico il primo ed il padre del modernismo inglese il secondo - mentre Harry Potter o Il Signore degli Anelli erano presenti in tutte le liste - anche qui, importantissimi per la storia del fantasy e perfino rivoluzionari, ma paragonarli a Shakespeare?

E voi, cosa ne pensate? Siete d'accordo, anche parzialmente, o ci sono grandi assenti? Fatemelo sapere nei reblog :)

[100milesfromhome]

Emily! Do not care care about CP . Yes, I’m

American. Like to watch Arsenal vs Barca and I’m supporting Arsenal. Goooo Beth!

Aw, okay I take it back then. Goo Beth indeed

[enlightened711-blog]

Enlightened The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. Albert Einstein Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better. Albert Einstein Enlightenment: The act of enlightening or the state of being enlightened. Enlighten: Give greater knowledge and understanding about a subject or situation. Give spiritual knowledge or insight. Enlightened: Having or showing a rational, modern, and well-informed outlook. Spiritually aware. Meditation and mindfulness are useful tools in this process of creating a more accurate perception of reality, a more focused life and a more joyful experience. As we delve into our inner world the study of the sciences, psychology, the brain and consciousness can help us interpret our experiences. Our enlightenment is effected by our ego's need to see the world in a certain way and to maintain it's own existence. Meditation can help us see the world more clearly, not as we as we think we need to see it. When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained. Mark Twain All this worldly wisdom was once the unnameable heresy of some wise man. Henry David Thoreau Delusions are normal parts of existence, assume that they are there even though you can not see them.   Mindfulness helps us live in the present without the demons of the past tearing at us or the desires and fears of the future distracting us. It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer. Albert Einstein We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us. Joseph Campbell And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. Anais Nin Participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world. We cannot cure the world of sorrows, but we can choose to live in joy. Joseph Campbell The best way to make your dreams come true is to wake up. Paul Valery For all life is a dream, and dreams themselves are only dreams. Pedro Calderon de la Barca Myths are public dreams, dreams are private myths. Joseph Campbell Living in dreams of yesterday, we find ourselves still dreaming of impossible future conquests. Charles Lindbergh One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon instead of enjoying the roses that are blooming outside our windows today. Dale Carnegie The Universe is one great kindergarten for man. Everything that exists has brought with it its own peculiar lesson. Orison Swett Marden There are always flowers for those who want to see them. Henri Matisse Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors where there were only walls. Joseph Campbell Most sets of values would give rise to universes that, although they might be very beautiful, would contain no one able to wonder at that beauty. Stephen Hawking The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it. Henry David Thoreau To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else. Emily Dickinson Who will tell whether one happy moment of love or the joy of breathing or walking on a bright morning and smelling the fresh air, is not worth all the suffering and effort which life implies. Erich Fromm It takes a long time to become young. Pablo Picasso There is always some specific moment when we become aware that our youth is gone; but, years after, we know it was much later. Mignon McLaughlin An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself. Albert Camus Alas, after a certain age every man is responsible for his face. Albert Camus Beauty is unbearable, drives us to despair, offering us for a minute the glimpse of an eternity that we should like to stretch out over the whole of time. Albert Camus For if there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life. Albert Camus He who despairs of the human condition is a coward, but he who has hope for it is a fool. Albert Camus How hard, how bitter it is to become a man! Albert Camus That God does not exist, I cannot deny, That my whole being cries out for God I cannot forget. Jean-Paul Sartre There is only one day left, always starting over: it is given to us at dawn and taken away from us at dusk. Jean-Paul Sartre We do not judge the people we love. Jean-Paul Sartre When we love the world we do not judge it, rather we make a choice in the moment. Respond intelligently even to unintelligent treatment. Lao Tzu Always respond intelligently to unintelligent treatment even if to an outside observer it appears that you are not responding intelligently. Everything happens to everybody sooner or later if there is time enough. George Bernard Shaw Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. Henry David Thoreau Until you value yourself, you won't value your time. Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it. M. Scott Peck The more you value yourself the more that you will be able to focus your efforts. He that would live in peace and at ease must not speak all he knows or all he sees. Benjamin Franklin Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall. Confucius Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage. Lao Tzu For in all adversity of fortune the worst sort of misery is to have been happy. Boethius The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched - they must be felt with the heart. Helen Keller All men are children, and of one family. The same tale sends them all to bed, and wakes them in the morning. Henry David Thoreau As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives. Henry David Thoreau A pathway starts with a single footstep. Friends... they cherish one another's hopes. They are kind to one another's dreams. Henry David Thoreau It is a difficult decision to wake someone from a delusional dream. Wake oneself first. How can any man be weak who dares to be at all? Henry David Thoreau If you can speak what you will never hear, if you can write what you will never read, you have done rare things. Henry David Thoreau Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them. Henry David Thoreau The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when one asked me what I thought, and attended to my answer. Henry David Thoreau The squirrel that you kill in jest, dies in earnest. Henry David Thoreau There is no remedy for love but to love more. Henry David Thoreau There is no value in life except what you choose to place upon it and no happiness in any place except what you bring to it yourself. Henry David Thoreau True friendship can afford true knowledge. It does not depend on darkness and ignorance. Henry David Thoreau You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Henry David Thoreau A loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and thou. Omar Khayyam Drink! for you know not whence you came nor why: drink! for you know not why you go, nor where.   Omar Khayyam Living Life Tomorrow's fate, though thou be wise, Thou canst not tell nor yet surmise; Pass, therefore, not today in vain, For it will never come again. Omar Khayyam The moving finger writes, and having written moves on. Nor all thy piety nor all thy wit, can cancel half a line of it. Omar Khayyam That though the radiance which was once so bright be now forever taken from my sight. Though nothing can bring back the hour of splendor in the grass, glory in the flower. We will grieve not, rather find strength in what remains behind. William Wordsworth Thinking isn't agreeing or disagreeing. That's voting. Robert Frost Adapt or perish, now as ever, is nature's inexorable imperative. H. G. Wells Fame will go by and, so long, I've had you, fame. If it goes by, I've always known it was fickle. So at least it's something I experience, but that's not where I live. Marilyn Monroe For every person who has ever lived there has come, at last, a spring he will never see. Glory then in the springs that are yours. Pam Brown Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair. Kahlil Gibran I've made an odd discovery. Every time I talk to a savant I feel quite sure that happiness is no longer a possibility. Yet when I talk with my gardener, I'm convinced of the opposite. Bertrand Russell Let us learn to appreciate there will be times when the trees will be bare, and look forward to the time when we may pick the fruit. Anton Chekhov Every religion is true one way or another. It is true when understood metaphorically. But when it gets stuck in its own metaphors, interpreting them as facts, then you are in trouble. Joseph Campbell I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn't arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I'm going to be happy in it. Groucho Marx A truly good book teaches me better than to read it. I must soon lay it down, and commence living on its hint. What I began by reading, I must finish by acting. Henry David Thoreau

[awfcrusso]

Oooo this excites me

And a 4 year deal 🤩🤩

[barcastat]

Andrés Iniesta - Top of the World

Andrés waited until everyone else in Johannesburg was asleep. He has always been able to find a silent space to listen to his own body, and now finally off of Raúl's treatment table, that is exactly what he wanted to do. He carefully opened the door of his hotel room and he began to run. He began to run as if he was running for his life, from one end of the hallway of the team's South Africa hotel to the other. He was satisfying an irresistible urge to carry out his own personal fitness test, with no one watching, and even though there was no ball at his feet. He was a long way from the pitch, but this was enough to know that he was cured. It was enough to convince him. He wanted to shout: “I'm ready, the torment is over.”  At long last, Iniesta could run, he could play, all the way to the World Cup final. Those damned muscles injured months ago had finally been fixed as if by magic. After so many setbacks, they were once again synchronized like the hands of a Swiss watch. They had been made good again thanks to the precise care of Raúl Martinez and the advice of Emili Ricart, two men separated by thousands of kilometres but joined together by the common link of Iniesta. “l was not there with Andrés. Nor do I know when it was that he started running. He did not tell me. Sometimes certain injuries have no real scientific explanation. I never fully understood this one. After various tests we found a part of the muscle fibre, that we had previously ignored, which seemed to be provoking a sort of disorganization in the leg. I thought that could be the crux of the problem.” Raúl said. Raúl unblocked the leg and Emili cleared the head with a video that Andrés watched every night before going to bed, as if he was reciting the 'Lord’s Prayer’ as a small boy in Fuentealbilla. Pep Guardiola loved the subject of motivation and just as with the Gladiator video he showed his Barcelona players before the Champions League final in Rome in 2009, he also prepared, along with Emili and Santi Pedro, a TV3 journalist, a video to inspire Barca to a second-leg comeback against José Mourinho's Inter in the Champions League semi-final of 2010. That tape recounted various big defeats and then some very big victories; moments of huge frustration and of great euphoria experienced by Sporting figures such as Roger Federer, Fernando Alonso, synchronized swimmer Gemma Mengual, the Spain basketball team and the Spanish handball team. It also included the 'Iniestazo’ as Iniesta's semi-final goal against Chelsea in 2009 had become known and that Rome final with some opera from Bocelli to accompany Leo Messi’s famous header and the image of him hanging from the sky of the Olympic Stadium as he scored the second goal of the 2-0 win that night. The film started with the euphoria, the embraces, the high-fives, the unity in victory. But the glorious colour of the opening frames then gave way to the black and white images of defeat, of sportsmen free-falling towards failure. There were around 30 seconds of the suffering of finishing second of Puyol and Estiarte lamenting Essien's brilliant goal from the main stand of Stamford Bridge in London in 2009 as Laporta nervously ran his hand over the top of his hair, imagining the worst. Then the colour returned as defeat was turned into victory once more, until the last image of Barça, together in a circle, celebrating the club’s third European Cup in Rome. It was a great way to visualize beating Mourinho's team. Guardiola, however, never let his players see that DVD in the Camp Nou dressing-room before the game against Inter. The coach sensed a degree of over-excitement in the journey to the stadium when the team bus came down from the hotel on the Tibidabo mountain through a sea of expectant Barcelona fans lining the streets. He decided he did not want to crank up his players' level of adrenaline any higher and so that video of four minutes and four seconds stayed in the hands of Emili. At least that was the case until he decided to give it to Iniesta at the 2010 World Cup. Emili exchanged messages with Andrés every day, so he knew that it was working for him as soon as he found out about that solitary run down the hallway of Spain's team hotel. Raúl did not even need to speak to Andrés. The player gave the game away with that deliriously happy look of illumination on his face. Now used to playing with pain, he felt free at last and anxious to reach the boat in Johannesburg’s Soccer City the light that waited for him on the other side of those Soweto suburbs. “You would struggle to find anyone as honest, dedicated and so willing, to work as Emili.” Andrés says. “I never knew him personally until Guardiola brought him with him to the first team. Since then we have become practically inseparable. I can identify with him, with his way of thinking and his way of working. He is very special to me.” says Andrés, who also feels much the same way about Raúl. “I knew that Raúl was a phenomenon in his field. And he showed that during the World Cup. I can honestly say that, in sporting terms, he saved my life. He knows my body and how it works as if he had given birth to me. He has become indispensable.” One is ‘special' and the other ‘indispensable’. Both are there to help Andrés. They understand the doubts and concerns of a player who needed to test his fitness in private; who needed to listen to his body and hear that everything was now in the right place. “Yes!” resounded in the hotel hallway from the mouth of Iniesta whose World Cup started at that very moment. “On 13 April 2010, I injured my right hamstring training at Barcelona’s Ciudad Deportiva. It really felt that I had torn it and there was only a little over a month before Del Bosque  would name the squad for the World Cup. Time was very tight and I really believed that l was not going to make it.” said Iniesta. That moment of pain is still remembered at Barcelona’s training ground at Sant Joan Despí. Everyone was shocked to see Andrés abandon the session in tears accompanied by Emili, and eventually also by Carles Puyol as soon as he realized just how serious the injury was. “Cheer up, Andrés, everything will be fine.” The defender whispered in his ear as they left the training pitch together. Andrés heard nothing as they took the long walk back to the dressing-room. He was paralyzed by the fear that he was now back in the abyss, one that he was convinced he had left behind for good. All he could hear was his own sobbing. I told him: "Don't worry, Andrés. You are going to be the best player at the World Cup. But he was crying so much I don’t think he heard me.” says Paco Seirulo, the fitness coach at Barcelona whose words had been almost lost in the sound of the falling water from the shower. “Of course I heard Paco. But I could not bring myself to respond.” Iniesta says, remembering the scene inside the dressing-room moments before Puyol, captain, friend and confidant, would open the door to the solution to his problem: “You have to talk to Raúl, okay? Everything will be fine but you must speak to Raúl.” “My heart and my morale were on the floor. I had suffered with injuries for a year, but it seemed I was in the clear and full of excitement for the World Cup. But now I was back on the brink of missing the tournament.” says Andrés. “And yes I spoke to Raúl.” It may have appeared that Andrés had not been listening, but he was soon surrounded by the best specialists, and they were determined to put the boy from Fuentealbilla right once again. “The first thing Raúl told me was: ‘Don't worry, you will make the World Cup! And once you are there, we will do everything we can to make sure you get back to normal.’” ‘Normal?’ Such a low-key word for such a desperate situation. A footballer on the verge of missing a World Cup finals. “It is one of the most difficult moments that l have had to go through. But life has shown me not to give up, ever.” Andrés wrote at the time. There were now less than two months before Spain's first game in Durban. “Before the tournament began we had a month of spending every evening together. After dinner, it would be ‘time for Rail’ and I would lay down on the treatment table and put my body in his hands.” says Andrés. “What did I do to him?” Raúl still takes a few seconds to answer the question he has set himself. How did he change Andrés’ body? The video from Emili got him through the night but it was the magic hands of Raúl that helped him survive the day-to-day struggle to get his muscles right to play again. Both men knew that something was not right with Andrés. Something that not even the calm transmitted by Vicente del Bosque could remedy. “Don’t worry, I will wait for you right until the end.”  Del Bosque had told him. The man from Salamanca, fair and sensitive as ever, a man of his word, was showing his usual common sense. The patience of the coach was as decisive as the work of the two physiotherapists and the work and attitude of Iniesta himself. One week before his World Cup debut against Switzerland, Spain played their final friendly, in Murcia against Poland. Andrés was back. The midfielder picked up the ball on the left wing, whereas a right-footer he had always been so comfortable finding space and then bringing the ball inside. This particular move lasted 16 seconds and took him to the edge of Kuszczak area. He had swapped passes with Xavi and Silva before receiving the ball again with his back to the Polish goal. He controlled with his left foot, stepped on it with his right and turned to face the five Polish defenders between him and the goal. With the Murcia public on the edge of their seats, he flicked the ball up and over the Polish wall and played in Xavi who squared for Silva to score. Now you see it, now you don't, and all in the blink of an eye. “There we saw a magician inventing a pass, inventing a space, Xavi arriving from deep, the assist, the finish from David, real team play.” That was Andoni Zubizarreta version of the goal. He was an analyst at the time and only later become sporting director for Barcelona. It was another expression of a long-held admiration and one that told him what would happen as soon as the ball left the right boot of Iniesta. The game was no more than 14 minutes old and Raúl and Emili, the former sat on the bench of the Nueva Condomina stadium and the latter preparing a holiday to the Dominican Republic, were smiling broadly, accomplices in the happiness of Andrés who after setting up Villa with that right-footed pass for the first goal, had now played in Xavi for the second. There was euphoria in the stands and in the squad as everyone celebrated Iniesta's recovery. Until he came over to the bench and asked Del Bosque to take him off. “I have to learn from my experiences.” argues the player, wise enough to know that if he feels even the slightest pain he should ask to be replaced as he did in Murcia. Del Bosque was concerned and the team doctors were worried because this was minute 39 of a game being played on 8 June, just one week before Spain's Opening World Cup match. “We took him off because he felt some discomfort in the back of his thigh.” Spain doctor Oscar Celada told journalists after the game. “lt is not a tear and it has not deteriorated since. It was at the start of the game and he felt the discomfort so we made the change. It is a minor injury, we will do some tests but initially we can rule out anything serious. We just need to be cautious.” He was speaking for the press but also for Andrés who was now unsettled once more, trapped between the contrasting feelings of positivity for the way he had played and negativity because of the new setback. The right thigh was broken, almost. According to tests carried out in Barcelona there was a slight hamstring strain and the inflammation would require patience if it was to heal. “There is some small swelling in a muscle in the back of the right thigh. Initially the prognosis is good because there are no torn muscle fibres. We are not ruling him out for the Switzerland game.” said Juan Cota, another of the team’s doctors. The initial prognosis was good. But that word ‘initial’ had been cruel on Andrés in the past. He had suffered other injuries that had an ‘initially’ favourable diagnosis and turned out to be much worse, none more so than the torn thigh and the groin problem that blighted his season at Barcelona. The World Cup was about to start and Del Bosque was even more worried because he knew the subtleties of Spain's best football came from Iniesta. The player himself felt suffocated, annoyed at himself for having suffered so many injuries, too many. Iniesta did make it back for the game against the Swiss at the start of the World Cup but he injured himself again. This time after an hour of play, when he was brought, down by the right-back Lichtsteiner. He took his time getting back to his feet, obsessed with avoiding another major setback, he spent the next minute or so touching the back of his right thigh. That was the root of all his muscle problems. He was so worried he was unable to remember if, as nearly always, it had been Pedro who had gone on to replace him. The ritual repeated itself regardless of the opponent and even at a World Cup. Del Bosque would start with Iniesta, he would get injured, and Pedro would come on to replace him. And it seemed the better he was playing, the more likely it seemed he would pick up an injury. Andrés had played two passes inside the Swiss central defenders that had left a team-mate alone in the area. One found Piqué who had become an auxiliary centre-forward as Spain searched for a goal. Then he played a magical back-heel in another of Spain's best moves. He was on good form as he showed with a curling shot from the edge of the area from almost the same spot on the pitch from where he found the back of the net at Stamford Bridge. Then came the foul from Lichtsteiner. The injury appeared more serious this time. For a split second it seemed Andrés wanted to be swallowed up by the South African turf, something that did not pass without Canal+ commentator Michael Robinson noticing: “l don’t like the look on Iniesta’s face.” the ex-Liverpool forward told co-commentator Carlos Martínez: it was going to be necessary to revive the routine of messages from Emili and massages from Raúl. The psychological and physical therapy would be needed again and the blind faith that one day Iniesta would not have these relapses. “I came on and saw him touching the back of his thigh and said: ‘It seems like a blow to the back of the leg! Andrés.’ ‘No, no doctor, it's cramp at the back of the muscle.’ he said, which sounded the alarm bells. ‘Madre Mía! Let's walk very carefully off the pitch without hurrying, Andrés, okay?’ I said as we left the Durban pitch.” The coaching staff assumed that he would not be fit to play Honduras in five days time, but they trusted in him being ready for the last and potentially decisive group game against Chile. The Spain manager, a man of profound convictions, now had to face the criticism for the 1-0 defeat to Switzerland.“We are not going to lose perspective, we will be true to our style.” said Del Bosque. “lt was a mishap that is difficult to explain.” said Xavi. It was double frustration for Andrés with the defeat and the old injury now behaving slightly differently in South Africa from how it was in Barcelona. The situation was so delicate that they decided not to carry out tests on the injury and the doctors assured everyone that it was just a knock that would not become anything more. They didn’t want to take it any further. Convinced that if they showed Andrés one more image of the affected area, it could be the end of his World Cup. “You can’t treat a player by just showing him scans.” says Raúl “Sometimes you anticipate, or you take a risk, or you use your intuition with the aim of making sure he does not begin to obsess over his injury.” “Between the Switzerland game and the Honduras match, I had a very bad time of it.” remembers Andrés, immersed in a rehabilitation programme which naturally involved falling asleep at night to Emili video and, of course, Raúl's treatment table. And it was there in that player's confessional where a sportsman must lay himself bare and give up all his physical secrets to the perceptive hands of the physiotherapist, that he noticed the most subtle of changes, a change that would then need to be tested in the hallway of the Johannesburg hotel on the eve of the game against Honduras. “Raúl had hit the right spot, I just knew it.” he remembers. “It was not easy getting a handle on him; he's difficult to understand and sometimes I think l still don't.” says Raul. “But once you do, you see what an enigma he is. He lives in his own world, you never know what he is thinking, as if he is a little disconnected, and at first not overly-trusting it's hard to get inside his head. And when he is injured, it’s worse because he is anxious.” Raúl did get through to him though; the pair did strike up an understanding: “He is like a Swiss watch: in as much as we both know how he works, what he responds to, and we have learned what makes him tick.” he says. “He is as sensitive as he is mechanical. We had to harmonize his body again. And that is what we did.” But if what was happening in South Africa pointed to him returning in time for the Honduras game, another message was coming to him from Barcelona. It was a phrase that he had heard so many times before that it echoed around his head. “Andrés, you have to respect your body clock. You must always do that.” Emili never abandoned that one message - the time frames had to be respected. And so it was nine days later, on 25 June, when Andrés was able to celebrate a double victory after the defeat to Switzerland and his injury. Spain beat Chile and he scored the goal from a Villa assist - the world back to front, but who cared? He finished the game smiling like a schoolboy who had just got away with something, or at least one who had witnessed something turn out just as he had predicted. Andrés loves nothing more than that feeling as he heads back up the tunnel of being completely exhausted but wholly fulfilled by a well earned win, and even more so if one of his famous pre-match predictions has come true: “Victor, today I will score and I will dedicate it to you.” he had muttered to the team-mate on the seat next to him on the coach to Pretoria. The best victories always make fertile ground for the more intimate of anecdotes. “You could have cut the atmosphere with a knife.” remembers Del Bosque whose team were fully aware that they were playing for their very survival at the World Cup. There was a tense silence barely broken by the occasional whisper, such as Iniesta’s murmured promise to Victor Valdés, the boy who protected him in La Masia, the player who was justly given the opportunity to play for Spain precisely because of the influence of Barça on Del Bosque. The goal was started and finished by Iniesta. He won possession and he combined with Torres and Villa before hitting the back of the Chilean net shot with his right foot, his good foot, now completely cured, unstoppable even for Claudio Bravo, one of the best goalkeepers around who would later become his club team-mate at the Camp Nou. It was not just any goal either, because he had only scored one another in 42 games for Barcelona in that dramatic 2009-10 season in which he finished up playing just five minutes of the last match, as Guardiola's team beat Valladolid to win the league at the Camp Nou. Andrés had stopped touching the back of his leg and was now looking at his boots instead. He was no longer thinking about the games he had played, and was instead focused on the matches to come. There was no longer any trace of that pain in the right leg so well cared for by Rail. “A lot of the problems I have had with the hamstring derive from the injury I sustained playing the Rome Champions League final.” Andrés confesses. He might not be a doctor but he knows his own body as if he were a fusion of Raúl and Emili. “There were so many months of difficulties but when Raúl got to the root of the problem and liberated that area of the muscle everything started to work properly again.” says Andrés who always expresses himself best, not with words or gestures, but with his feet. When his body is right, stable and in perfect harmony, that’s when he can let the ball do the talking. “If I feel good, then everything else just flows.” There is no middle ground with Andrés, he is indestructible when he is fully fit, and fragile when he is injured; even slightly fatalistic. “Why did this have to happen now, just at the moment when l was feeling so good?” he would ask after every setback, not differentiating between small or big injuries and demanding so much from his body. But he felt good again now; good on that journey from the last group game in Pretoria to the final in Johannesburg. The muscle had healed and so had the memory of it in Cape Town in the last 16, the front pages had told of victory over Portugal and Ronaldo taking the defeat badly. ln Johannesburg in the quarter-final against Paraguay, Casillas had saved a decisive penalty with a little help from reserve goalkeeper Pepe Reina who had previously faced spot-kicks from Oscar Cardozo and told him which way to dive. And the semi-final against Germany was a happy return to the scene of all the uncertainties from the first match of the finals it had been in Durban on 16 june when he picked up the injury against Switzerland. But it would also be in Durban on 7 July when he was able to enjoy the moment Puyol threw open the doors to the World Cup final. “Please Xavi, the next corner, put it there for me, okay?” came the request from the Barcelona captain Puyol to his club team-mate. “But why would I put it right in the centre for you? Can't you see how big the Germans are?” Xavi responded. “For fuck sake, Pelopo. You just put it there on the penalty spot for me, can’t you see they are like statues?” came back the response. “Okay, okay! Like it’s that easy!” said Xavi, or ‘Pelopo’, the nickname he has had since his days at La Masia (a body hair reference, explain his teammates whenever asked.) “lf you don't put it there, I’m not coming, up for any more corners.” shouted back Puyol. Television cameras captured this heated discussion at half-time as both players walked off with the score at 0-0, Xavi repeating the phrase to himself. “Like it’s that easy!” It certainly was not easy, especially with the Jabulani, the glorified beach ball that despite having a life of its own had become the official World Cup match ball. Any doubt that Xavi could deliver lasted only until Spain won their first second-half corner. More convinced of his own ability than ever, he trotted across to the corner to the right of Neuer’s goal. “Right now, you are going to get it, Puyi.” Alongside him was Iniesta, no more than five or six metres away. Although Iniesta did not know it at the time, his job was one of distraction: operation Xavi and Puyol needed a decoy. Xavi wanted the German defenders to think that Spain would play the kick short, as they were tending to do, trying to draw the German giants out of their area. The short corner was straight out of the Barça and Spain textbook but the textbook was torn up in favour of the stubborn belief of Puyol and the complicity of Xavi. The Jabulani obeyed the maestro's right foot and flew directly over the penalty spot where it was met by Puyol's head. The Catalan centre back rose a split second before and jumped a centimetre higher than any of the eight German defenders marking the five Spain players in the area. it is no secret that the football of both Spain and Barcelona is precisely a question of time and space in which one centimetre and one second can make all the difference. Players have to think quickly and arrive before their opponents and even their team-mates. Puyol got to the ball ahead of Piqué. “I was going to head it but right at that moment, he got in front of me, I thought it was a plane.” joked Gerard Piqué afterwards Puyol’s header was as powerful as it was accurate and was only ever going to end up in one place. It took just two seconds to score such a historic goal from Xavi's boot into the back of Neuer’s net. lt was a set-piece made in Barcelona and one which had already been successful against Real Madrid in the famous 6-2 Clasico win in 2009. Spain had not scored a goal from a set-piece before in a World Cup and they have not done so since. It had been the most important goal in Spain's history. “What have you done to my country? Why? What have we ever done to you. Eh?” The question did not sound friendly or tongue-in-cheek. It was more rude and unpleasant; uttered by a disgruntled passer-by towards the table where Puyol, his brother Josep and friend Javi, Iniesta and the players’ agent Ramon Sostres, were sitting. The five of them lifted their gaze towards the arrogant-sounding German voice that had addressed the captain of Barcelona. It was Lothar Matthéus, a proud Bavarian whose intimidating curriculum included no less than five World Cups and a winner’s medal from Italia ‘90. “I haven’t done anything. Just a little header.” responded Puyol, smiling through that mop of curly hair. His reactions had been as quick as for the goal itself. “Relax, relax! I hope you have a lot of luck in the final!” said the German. Matthéius smiled and walked away and everyone else smiled too, their conversation having been interrupted by what at first seemed like a provocation but had then turned into light-hearted congratulations once the Latinos had decoded the German humour. “Do you realize what you have done, Carles? You have scored the most important goal in the history of Spanish football and everyone knows it.” said his companions at the table. “Let’s hope only until Sunday.” said the goalscorer. “Only until Sunday.” “Relax, Carles, I will take care of that. Don't you worry.” Suddenly all eyes were on Andrés. Everyone was surprised by the forcefulness of the statement he had just made, and filled with hope too because whenever he made such bold predictions it was usually because he had seen what was about to happen. When everything seems straightforward, his is the voice that warns against complacency; and when everything seems difficult, his is the voice that announces the arrival of a better future. “Do you believe in destiny, Andrés?” came the question from the table. “Destiny is a very complex word. l was certainly in the right place at the right time.’ And if he was in South Africa it certainly was not by coincidence. The relief at being there after thinking his chance may have gone explained his relaxed mood leading up to the final; one that allowed him to intervene in these post-match discussions, to enjoy Emili's therapy video every night and to raise a glass to Ram's treatment table. Soccer City, 11 july 2010, the day of the World Cup final, and the minutes leading up to a game the whole planet would stop to watch. A planet intrigued by a Holland side who now played like one of the fierce Spain teams of old, up against a Spain team that now more than ever before resembled the classic Dutch masters whose Total Football may have lost the World Cup to Franz Beckenbauer's Germans in 1974 but won over the whole of Football. Roles had been reversed since the arrival of Luis Aragonés and Del Bosque, who both encouraged teams that looked to control matches through possession who were built around the talented ball-playing Spanish midfielder, and therefore. naturally, around Iniesta. With Aragonés, Spain won Euro 2008, their first title in 44 years; now two years later, they were 90 minutes away from a first-ever World Cup. Andrés reached the dressing-room and went deeper and deeper into his own world, only coming to the surface for a moment to speak with Hugo Camarero. He had something to say to one of Spain's assistants, a member of the backroom physio team, one who has hands of silk that calm the most tired and pained of muscles, Hugo was in the dressing-room when he heard Iniesta. “Hey Hugo, please..” Hugo, consumed by the usual pre-match hustle and bustle, and even more so because this was a World Cup final, stopped what he was doing to attend to Andrés. “First, Jesús Navas sent for me to arrange to dedicate a shirt, then Andrés came to see me. He was working with Raúl at the time. I don’t know if he had seen what I had done for Jésus in the dressing-room before a game so many things happen, so imagine before a World Cup final: treatments, bandages, massages." Andrés came over: “Hey, Hugo, make me a shirt for Jarque, please.” “What size do you want it? Big, small, short-sleeved, long-sleeved, a vest? Short-sleeved, okay don’t worry, when you come back from the warm-up we will have it ready.” Andrés continued: “Please put: ‘Dani Jarque, always with us.’ and make sure it's written large on the front.” “Don’t worry, when you come back in it will be there for you.’ Andrés went out to warm up. Hugo also had to go out onto the pitch at Soccer City to accompany and help the physical trainer Javi Mihano take the session. But before that he now had something to do. “As fast as I could, I went to look for Joaquin who is one of the kit men with the Spain team.” recalls Hugo. “Here you go, Hugo, the vest you wanted!’ But who gave him the marker pen? “That was also Joaquin. They always have them for the corners and free-kick sheets that are given to the players before every match. But Joaquin, and don't ask me why, already suspected something. ‘Don’t use too much ink. We are going to need that marker pen. You will see why.’ he said to me.” With every letter he wrote, with a sort of accelerated patience, he could feel the stare of Joaquin on the back of his neck. Would there be enough ink? “I am very meticulous and I was pressing down hard on each letter, using more ink than Joaquin wanted me to. Why? Because I wanted people to be able to read the words. I wanted it to look perfect.” Hugo was acting with an unshakeable faith that this shirt would be seen by the whole world. Andrés was still out on the pitch warming up and Minano was missing Hugo, but Hugo had still not finished. “Come on, Hugo-come on.” Between the pressure he was being put under by Joaquin and the pressure he was under anyway, he finished as quickly as he could. “Perhaps six or seven minutes. Not much more.” When Andrés returned, the shirt was waiting for him. “I don't think he said anything to me.” remembers Hugo. “Maybe he raised his hand. You  know what he's like. He says more with a gesture or a look than with words.” Hugo returned to the quiet of the dressing room after the warm-up had finished. Andrés had withdrawn into his own silent space. It was the calm before the storm a very delicate mix of subtle gestures, looks and whispers ahead of the game they all knew was the biggest of their lives. Nobody saw him put on that second layer beneath his red and blue Spain shirt. Nor did anyone notice that Andrés, superstitious and never comfortable with long sleeves had cut the sleeves on his shirt. “I remember that the tunnel from the dressing-room to the pitch was so long and steep.”  Andrés says. “When you saw the light at the end of it, it gave you the feeling of entering a Colosseum. You didn't see the stands until you were right in the mouth of the tunnel.” In that tunnel, Andrés, with the sleeveless white tee shirt carrying Hugo’s handiwork on the front of it, under his own Spain number 6, begins to feel something inside. It isn't fear or anxiety. Is it nerves? A little insecurity, perhaps? He walks down that tunnel, on edge. “When I see that photograph, it still makes my hair stand on end.” says  Hugo. “So imagine what it was like for him! I see that message and my mind is swamped by a thousand flashbacks. And I think about all that he went through at that World Cup. Did he suffer? Yes, he did. He suffered a lot.” says Hugo. “It was fifty five days, including the preparation leading up to the tournament. Days and nights of treatment, sometimes until four in the morning. Look what happened in Murcia before the trip to South Africa. He was home free but the injury caught up with him. Look what happened against the Swiss. He was so nearly a hundred percent right again, but he had to start all over again. Every morning the same routine, the same scene. Let’s see now, the good morning greeting you get from Andrés. How does it go? We didn't really need words by the end. I think he ended up having more training sessions with me than with the rest of the team. If he gave you a smile, then that was enough. With a simple gesture, it was enough. There were nights when I spent more time praying than sleeping. Praying that the following morning, his good morning smile would be a reassuring one.” The kit men for the Spain team worked with the utmost care to make sure Andrés wanted for nothing. Before going to South Africa, the Spanish Football Federation even set up a gymnasium at the team’s training ground at Las Rozas with machines especially suited to his needs. “We brought the same machines that Xavi and Iniesta used in Barcelona” said Hugo. “And then we pressured them to take similar machines to the World Cup including the same running machine for Ramos. Andrés is very superstitious. But then many players are.” One day when Hugo was at training with Spain defender Raúl Albiol, the team doctor rushed on to the pitch shouting at Hugo: “You need to be with Andrés so you can do the same exercises with him as always now please and then you can come back to work with Albiol.” The patient was sure that with the same exercise routine every day, the body would end up synchronizing. That is why Hugo left everything he was doing and marched off for his meeting with Andrés Iniesta's legs. The routine could not be broken. “We had to manage the process very well with Andrés.” says Hugo. “The tests that we gave him, the information that we gave him, everything had to be really positive. I remember Raúl always repeating the same message to him so there were no doubts: ‘Relax, Andrés everything's going well. Relax.’ In fact, everything was not going well. It was going badly. But no matter how badly, we had to be positive.” Hugo was thinking about so many of these tiny details experienced during those 55 days as he made the long walk down the Soccer City tunnel. He was happy because Andrés had found exactly what he had asked for when he got back to his locker in the dressing-room. Everything was as it should be as he walked on to the pitch passing -without looking at it the World Cup he hoped he would end up kissing that night. “We got no idea what happened to that marker pen. I was a little bit annoyed when I gave it back that much I do remember.” says Hugo. There was a message on Jesús Navas' shirt that night too. The same one, written instead for Antonio Puerta, who had died tragically on the pitch when playing for Sevilla. The shirts were different too. The one used by Jesus was short-sleeved and blue and the one used by Andres, as the a whole world saw, was white and sleeveless. Both were the handiwork of Hugo Camarero. “Why did I never think of it before? I don't know. I don’t think too much about things. Perhaps it was inspiration from somewhere.” says Andrés. In the build-up to the final; Iniesta was occupied with more domestic affairs. He was making sure that his closest friends Jordi, Joel, Sesi and Alexis reached Johannesburg in time to see the final. “I didn’t need to think about the shirt when I scored the goal. It is something instinctive. You score and you immediately take off your shirt. lf I had thought about it too much, then maybe it would not have worked out so well. It went perfectly, it never got caught up, I took it off cleanly. It never fell to the ground. I never fell to the ground. It was incredible.” Hugo's handwritten message had ceased to be hidden beneath Andrés' Spain shirt. The message stirred millions of hearts, shaken by the unforgettable goal that had preceded it. ‘Dani Jarque, always with us.’ “I saw the goal in a different way to everyone else.” Andrés says. What is it like to score the goal that wins a World Cup and buries the footballing frustrations of an entire nation with one shot? “When I received the ball, I couldn’t hear a thing.” he says. “It feels as though when l controlled the ball the whole world stopped. It is difficult to explain. I didn’t feel anything in that moment, there was just silence. The ball, the goal, and  me. It is true that just before the ball is passed to me, I take a step back just to be sure I'm not offside. I knew that I wasn't, it was something instinctive. It's something your body does on autopilot. And then, then came the silence.” The ball arrived and sat up sweetly for Iniesta to control it and strike it “You have to hold back for just a moment, just so that you catch it perfectly. You're in charge. You and only you. The ball was Newton’s apple. And so that made me Newton. I just needed to wait for gravity to take its course. You control the situation. You decide the height the ball is at when you hit it, how hard you hit it, and where you send it. In that moment of silence, it's just you and the ball. My intention was to 'shoot as far into the corner as I could so that the goalkeeper could not get to it, but it ends up going in more centrally. But I hit it hard, that’s for sure. The truth is I don’t like to think too much about the process. When you think you lose a tenth of a second, and if you think too much you can miss.”The ball, struck a little more centrally than planned, bent back the right hand of Stekelenburg. With the Dutch keeper now on his knees beaten by the shot, Andrés turned towards the linesman hoping he had not committed the monumental injustice of raising his flag, because he had been onside. He also looked back towards the centre of the pitch remembering something else: “I participated in the entire move for the goal.”He speaks with pride about the way he had helped knit together the move that went from Sergio Ramos' zone at right back, to the centre-forward position,formerly the home of Fernando Torres before he injured himself in that second period of extra time, the backheel to Navas, the movement into space, the pause; all of it necessary for the move to go down in Spanish football history. Andrés is there in all those details. The player who says he doesn’t like to think too much. He did not suffer in those agonizing final minutes despite the nervous moments in the Spain area. “When I saw Robben coming in on Casillas, I was expectant. Nothing more than that. In the end you trust the goalkeeper, it's as simple as that. Now, after watching replays of the chance many times, I think Robben had enough pitch to dribble around Iker. But, luckily, he hit the shot and met with an immense Casillas. That save was so vital. What is more, the more minutes that were played the better I was feeling. I had the feeling we were going to win. The team was getting stronger, I was getting stronger. It is something you can feel. You can see it in the way you are receiving the ball and I wanted to play an important part. I wanted to take responsibility and I had the energy levels to do so. l felt no fear with the ball at my feet! I was empowered. And I'm not saying that just because of the goal, because that was just one of the many moves we put together. Before the goal I remember one chance when l controlled the ball well but just could not finish: There was the move when Heitinga was sent off and two or three other chances. I had the feeling I was going to have to dig even deeper than the rest for us to win that final. Don’t ask me why, that is just the way I felt.” says Andrés. What is more, it was not an easy final and not just for purely football reasons or because it had gone into extra time. Andrés knew right from the first kick that he was playing a thousand mini-matches in one massive game. This felt like something that had started four years earlier in 2006. “Of course I remember the challenges from Van Bommel. How could I forget them! He stepped on me on purpose and then committed two fouls against me that could have both been straight reds. And to think I was almost the one sent off! Imagine if I had been shown the red card. That was when I stuck my hip out and he went down as if I had killed him. I was furious when he had deliberately stepped on me to hurt me. I know in that moment I could have been the one receiving the red card, so..” He can't even bring himself to finish the sentence. But then the memories come flooding back of that moment when he became unrecognizable even to himself. “They kicked us all over the place in the final: the foul from De Jong on Xabi Alonso, the ones on me. And it’s true that I don’t usually lose my cool.” But he did lose his cool to the point where for a moment, caught up in that conflict with Van Bommel. Andrés was no longer himself. Rather than talk about what almost happened, he prefers to talk about what did happen. The goal. “It is not the goal the people see on the television.” he says. “It resembles it but it was not quite like that. Through my eyes, the perspective changes. The feeling I had on the pitch is something I can’t put into words. It was just very much my goal and I know I have never scored a goal like it. I don't know how to explain it, I don’t know how to do it justice.Everything around me froze for a few seconds, I heard the silence. That sounds like a contradiction but I can't think of a better way of describing it: an audible silence.” And then the ball hits the net, Andrés removes his Spain shirt and the world sees that message and remembers Dani Jarque. That white sleeveless t-shirt written on by Hugo, is in Daniel Jarque's spiritual home - Espanyol’s Cornellà-El Prat stadium. There where the crowd applaud their former captain in minute 21 -his shirt number of every single game. The game plays on but the supporters forget the football for a moment and give Dani, Andrés' friend, a minute's ovation, match after match, season after season. The blue Spain shirt with the sleeves hurriedly cut in the Soccer Qty dressing room is another football artefact and that is not in Andrés’ possession either. Who has it? “That particular treasure is in very safe hands.” he says. Emili still can't believe the gift that Andrés gave him when he came back from South Africa, a blue Spain shirt with something very special written on it: “Our secret worked, we became Champions! Thanks for being by my side! With affection. A. Iniesta 6.” This time it was the hand, not of Hugo but of Andrés, dedicating the shirt that still did not have the star above the badge reserved for teams who have won the World Cup but would be here forever more. Everyone remembers the goal. No one will ever forget it. But few remember that Andrés played six of the seven games at the World Cup and in three of them was voted man of the match; including the final of course.

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Ingrid Engen CB maestro turned into Ingrid Engen Striker Maestro what can this woman not do????

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Today is the day I remind everybody of how great Ingrid Engen is as a centre back

Side note this stream is in Spanish and I haven’t even grasped Spanglish yet

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Endler’s Fifa Team. Even she knew Barca were winning the ucl final with that Irene showdown 🤩

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Deportivo went out in this game with the hopes of one outcome and one outcome only. And that is to get free kicks.

Like how the fuck was pajor booked for that it’s a joke. Joke club that’ll get relegated come the end of the season.

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I’d rather alexia start against Chelsea and not Las Planas Jonatan but whatever ☺️☺️☺️☺️☺️