#it was all over when rafa withdrew | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ramp-it-up · 3 years

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Fine

Pairing: Rafel Casal x Reader

Word count: 2Kish.

Warnings: SMUT, 18+, MINORS DNI, CURATE YOUR OWN EXPERIENCE! Dark Dom!Rafa, Daveed dancing, drinking, cursing, angst, possessiveness, ex sex, face slapping, bathroom sex, fingering, oral (f receiving) clit slapping, orgasm denial, bdsm, binding, lashing, gagging oral (m receiving).

Summary: You didn’t need Rafa anymore. You were just fine without him.

A/N: This is a little dark. I think I’ve used this pic of Rafa before, but it’s perfect for this fic. And btw, I’m on my Rafael Santiago Casal Bullshit. Watch out.

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It had been 84 days and you were perfectly fine.

Out with your girls, you were wearing your freakum dress, getting plenty of attention and drinks.

You were fine.

So fine, that you were debating on which fine man to go home with. You surveyed the room for your pick. They’d all bought you a drink. You were polite, drank with them and told them you’d get back with them. You were trying to decide.

The chocolate one with the light eyes and the razor sharp fade?

The light skin with the gap teeth and hella swag?

The beefy blonde with the buzz cut?

You downed your fifth drink and moved towards those pretty gap teeth and swag.

Someone tall stepped in front of your 5” 6” frame in heels. You zigged and they zagged, blocking you from your goal.

You sighed and looked up at them, ready to politely ask that they move or cuss them out. It just depended on how their face made you feel.

You looked up to see Daveed and you squealed.

“DIGGS! HOLY FUCK IS THAT YOUUUU????”

He smiled and laughed at you.

“The one and only. What’s crackin’ girl?” He leaned back and surveyed your form in the dress.

“Damn! You’re still fine as hell!” He was shaking his head.

You threw yourself at him, your short body almost knocking his big lanky ass over with your over zealous buzzness. He laughed and hugged you more, leading you away from the bar.

“Where’s my girl?” You looked around for Daveed’s other half.

“She’s across country at a gig. I miss my Lady.” Daveed’s pout was adorable.

“Awwww, po baby. I’m gonna have to tell her to give you some electronic lovin.’” You started to pull out your phone.

“Oh, don’t bother. She already knows what’s up. Come dance with me.”

Daveed had turned into Mr. Smiley, and as usual, you couldn’t resist him. But you loved to tease.

“Boy, you know you can’t dance.”

“Fuck you mean????” Daveed started doing a very ugly robot.

“Fine! Let’s dance, ugh!”

You groaned and grabbed his hand to pull him out on the floor before he could embarrass himself, and you, any further.

Y’all had a ball, laughing and trying to talk to each other over the loud music, Daveed white girl dancing and you trying to teach him some moves.

After about four songs, the music turned slow and you two stood there awkwardly.

“Well, I guess I’ll go….”

You looked around to see if High Yella was still around.

Daveed’s eyes were above your head and the hair on the back of your neck stood up.

“May I have this dance?”

FUCK fuck fuck fuck fuck.

You turned around, and came face to face with Rafael Casal. Damn he was so fine.

You cocked your hip and crossed your arms, and glared up at him, mad because you felt like this was a trap.

Rafa stared at your pushed up breasts in the dress and your nipples pebbled as he licked his lips wolfishly.

You avoided the memories of Rafael’s excellent nipple play looked back at Daveed for rescue to see that Rafa’s wingman had suddenly disappeared.

You turned your head back to Rafa, the swivel in your neck obvious.

“I should have known that you would be lurking around here somewhere.”

You rolled your eyes, super annoyed and full of attitude.

And that’s why Rafa’s dick was on hard. He needed to give you some act right.

He’d watched you promise your body to every dude in the place with that fucking dress and lead them on. He needed to remind you whose it was.

Fuck that he’d given you the ‘It’s not you, it’s me,’ months ago.

You belonged to him.

“I don’t lurk, Sweet Pea, I flow. And yeah, you know Diggs is the Yin to my Yang, and vice versa.”

Rafa was speaking low enough that you had to lean in, and you caught his scent. Fuck if you weren’t thrown back 83 days to the last time you’d let him take you apart and literally screw you back together.

That dick was an artistic masterpiece, just like everything about Rafael Casal.

But you were fine.

“You have some nerve, calling me Sweet Pea. Fuck you, Santiago.”

You were heated, and maybe it’s because you wanted some act right. You cursed your pussy’s muscle memory and the five drinks you had that were making you weak for him. Because other than that, you’d be fine.

“Maybe later.” He smirked at you, so damn cocky.

“So, are you gonna stand in the middle of the dance floor and cuss me out, or are you gonna move to the music with me?”

Rafa held out his arms and you looked around, pretending that you didn’t want to be encircled by them again. But you couldn’t be rude, right?

You stepped to him and he put his hands around your waist and crossed them behind you, pulling you flush to him. You stared at his lips as you felt him look down at you.

You didn’t dare look into his eyes, but this view was making you remember what that mouth do.

Shit.

Rafa cleared his throat.

“So, how have you been?”

You looked over his shoulder to the speakers on the stage.

“These past three months have been fine, just fine, Rafael. My life is so zen now. I’m happy.”

“Not quite three months, Sweet Pea. 83 days and 14 hours. And I’ve missed you like crazy.”

You looked up into his eyes when he said that. Oh, hell.

“Oh. Did you now?” You were hot.

“Maybe you should have thought of that before you broke up with me the morning after you fucked me goodbye, you self centered narcissist asshole.”

You tried to leave his embrace, but Rafa slid his hands around to hold you fast, thumbs digging into your hip bones, hurting you. At the same time, his grip caused you to feel his desire pressed against your stomach.

You gasped and slapped his face. Hard.

You two stared at each other on the dance floor for a full ten seconds which seemed like forever.

The next thing you knew, you were being pushed up against the stall in the bathroom, the act of Rafa pulling you in there a total blur.

It always started like this, rough, fast, and hot.

Rafa’s hands were under the hem of your dress, dragging it up so that he could grab your panties and pull them down.

“You seem to have forgotten lesson number one. Whose pussy is this, Sweet Pea?”

You refused to answer and closed your eyes, memories of him seducing you just by teaching your fucking Poetry 201 course years ago flooding your brain.

He shook his head and knelt on the filthy floor as he removed and pocketed your thong.

“You prolonging your submission just prolongs the punishment, Sweet Pea. Is that what you need tonight?”

He licked a stripe up your leg and slung it on his shoulder, rutting into your pussy with his mouth.

Your protest at him stealing your clothing died on your lips and was replaced by a moan as Rafael’s skillful tongue started to swirl around your clit, while his fingers came up to roughly finger fuck your cunt.

“Damn, Rafa.”

You moaned and pulled his hair as his other hand came up to try and still your squirming on his face.

“Shut up and stay still, damnit.”

He spoke to you through your pussy, and your eyes rolled back in your head as the vibrations drove you crazy.

You tugged harder on his hair, which made him graze your clit with his teeth. Then, he laved it with his tongue and leaned back to look at it adoringly and then up at you.

You stared down at him, and watched his face glisten with your arousal. Then you caught his look. He sighed at your insolence.

“Fine. You know the drill. This is going to be payback.”

Before you could move, Rafa reached up and lovingly swirled three fingers around and around your clit, then slapped it three times.

You screamed, thankful that the club music was back to a loud cacophony.

He looked at you again, smiling that fucking smile.

“You wanna cum all over my face, Sweet Pea? Want me to make you unravel right here?”

You refused to answer him, but you both knew what was up. Rafa just chuckled at you, and leaned back in to devastate you with his mouth.

He flattened his tongue and took wide, languid strokes against your clitoris, keeping eye contact with you.

You were on fire, all nerves alive and reacting to what he was doing. He inserted two fingers inside you and curled them so precisely to that spot that always made you wonder if he was present at the engineering of your pussy.

You quivered, eyes squeezed shut and tears eaking out, so close to doing what he’d asked you about and bracing for it. Your muscles were taught, your feet were on tiptoe, even further than your 5 inch heels required, and you were holding your breath.

As soon as you felt you were about to gush into his mouth, suddenly, his warm tongue was replaced with cool air, and his fingers withdrew from your cunt.

“Arrghhhh! Cash! Fucking hell????”

He stood up, licking his fingers as he turned away from you, washed his hands and face, and used the water on them for his hair.

You were quivering with rage and desire. As you fixed your mouth to cuss him out, he spoke, calmly.

“You better not fucking move until I’m done.”

Rafa’s ice blue/green eyes in the mirror, and the tone, made you stand stock still, your dress still around your waist. Your pussy throbbed with excitement.

He finished the swoop, then turned back around to you, straightened your panties and pulled your dress down.

Then, he grabbed your face, pushing you against the stall again. His voice was menacing and cold.

“That’s just the beginning of your punishment for slapping me out there.”

You were dripping on the floor now. You wanted to hear what was next, despite yourself. No one could destroy and put you back together as eloquently as Rafael could.

Fuck, how you’d missed it. You were so wound up.

“If you want me to finish it, you know what to do. If you’re done…”

His eyes took in your face. So fucking beautiful.

“Well, goodbye Sweet Pea.”

He leaned in, and gave you a kiss, releasing your face and his hold on you. You moaned a little and put your arms around his neck, reveling in the tenderness while wanting the pain.

You whimpered as he pulled away, backed toward the door and walked out.

You went to the sink and put a cold paper towel on your neck, fixing your makeup and hair and getting your mind right.

You looked in the mirror. You were fine. You didn’t need what Rafael Casal had to offer.

You made a decision, straightened up and walked out of the bathroom.

----

An hour and a half later, you were in Rafael’s bedroom, naked on your knees, hands tied around your back, the lashes on your ass throbbing, gagging around his cock and praying that he’d let you breathe before you passed out.

You didn’t need Rafa.

But you wanted him.

And that was more than fine.

———

I hope it was fine for you! 😜

Tagging:

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rafaelnadalfans · 5 years

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Coupe Rogers Final: What time does Rafael Nadal play against Daniil Medvedev in Montreal?

Top seed and defending champion Rafael Nadal advanced to the Rogers Cup final on Saturday when Gael Monfils withdrew (ankle) before their semifinal.

Rafa will face eighth-seeded Daniil Medvedev, a 6-1, 7-6(6) winner over Karen Khachanov, in the all-Russian first semifinal.

Date: August 11, 2019

Match time:Not before 4 PM local time / 4 PM EDT – New York / 9 PM BST – United Kingdom / 10 PM CEST –…

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#Coupe Rogers #Daniil Medvedev #H2H #match time #Montreal #Rafael Nadal

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livevsongame-tv-blog · 6 years

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The Latest: Bubba Watson rallies to avoid extra holes

New Post has been published on https://livevsongame-tv.com/golf/the-latest-bubba-watson-rallies-to-avoid-extra-holes/20511/html

The Latest: Bubba Watson rallies to avoid extra holes

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) The Latest on the Dell Technologies Match Play (all times local):

5:20 p.m.

Patrick Reed is moving on. Jordan Spieth is going home, and searching for clues to his game.

Article continues below …

Reed never trailed in a 2-and-1 victory over Spieth, a regular partner in the Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup. Spieth hit out-of-bounds and into two hazards on the opening three holes. He squared the match at No. 10, only to lose two of the next three holes.

The match ended when Reed hit a 40-foot putt from behind the 17th green that looked as though it would go 8 feet by until it ran into the cup and disappeared for a birdie.

Spieth has made it out of his group just one time in four years of this format. He now has gone seven straight tournaments without a top 10.

—

4:35 p.m.

Ian Poulter is finally No. 2 behind Tiger Woods – at least when it comes to most matches won in the Match Play.

Poulter took advantage of Kevin Chappell and his ailing back and completed a 3-0 record to win his group. Poulter was 3 up when Chappell conceded the match at the turn.

That was the 26th victory for Poulter, who won this event in 2010. Woods, a three-time champion, has won 33 matches.

Poulter is playing the Match Play for the first time since 2015. He needs at least one more victory to assure moving into the top 50 in the world and qualify for the Masters.

Meanwhile, Jordan Spieth finally caught Patrick Reed, only to lose two of the next three holes. Reed had a 2 up lead with five to play.

—

3:55 p.m.

Paul Casey lost twice on Friday in The Match Play.

Casey only needed to halve his match against Matt Fitzpatrick to win his group for the third time in four years. Fitzpatrick beat him, 3 and 2. Casey still could have advanced if Russell Henley and Kyle Stanley tied in their match, but Stanley made an 8-foot birdie putt on the final hole for a 1-up victory. That meant Casey and Stanley finished 2-1-0 in the group.

There are no head-to-head tiebreakers, so they went to a sudden-death playoff. On the second hole, Stanley hit his approach to 4 feet and made the birdie putt to advance to the fourth round.

A similar scenario was shaping up involving Tyrrell Hatton, who was 2-0 but headed for a loss to Charley Hoffman. He would face a playoff against Alexander Levy and Brendan Steele, provided one of them one their match. They were all square through 14 holes.

—

3 p.m.

This World Golf Championship didn’t go as well as the last one for Phil Mickelson.

Mickelson won his match Friday against Rafa Cabrera Bello to go 2-1 for the week. He still was eliminated when Charles Howell III completed a sweep of his round-robin matches by beating Satoshi Kodaira. Howell won the group and kept alive his hopes for getting into the top 50 to earn a spot in the Masters.

Mickelson was coming off a victory at the Mexico Championship for his third WGC title.

Meanwhile, Patrick Reed was 1 up through seven holes in a match that could not be described as aesthetically pleasing. Spieth hit out-of-bounds on No. 1 and into hazards on the next two holes. They have combined to make one birdie putt.

1:20 p.m.

A big rally by Bubba Watson allowed him to advance to the weekend at the Match Play without having to go wait around for a playoff.

Watson birdied his last two holes, making an 8-footer on the 18th to earn a halve against Julian Suri. That was all the two-time Masters champion needed to win his group with a 2-0-1 record. If he missed, Watson and Suri would have gone to a sudden-death playoff.

Suri was the 64th and last player to get into the field when Joost Luiten withdrew. His intention was to ”shock the world,” much like No. 64 seed University of Maryland-Baltimore County in the NCAA basketball tournament.

He had to settle with shocking Marc Leishman in the opening round, even though there are no real upsets in golf, anyway.

Watson will face Brian Harman in the fourth round Saturday morning, a match between Georgia lefties.

—

1:15 p.m.

Brian Harman has defeated Rory McIlroy to become the first player to reach the weekend in the Dell Technologies Match Play.

Harman handed McIlroy his second loss of the week, 5 and 3, and won Group 6 to reach the fourth round at Austin Country Club. Harman was 2-0-1 in his group.

The winner from each of the 16 groups advances to the knockout stage over the weekend.

Four matches are between players who have yet to lose this week, and the star attraction is Jordan Spieth against Patrick Reed. They are stalwarts as partners in the Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup. Even in those situations, Spieth says they’re both trying to outdo the other.

Sergio Garcia, Alex Noren and Justin Thomas also are in matches between undefeated players.

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gedosportsstaff-blog · 6 years

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Another City performance which ensures the second half of this campaign will be a procession rather than a race.

The records are falling, the gap is growing bigger – now a whopping 15 points – and the tactics adopted by rival managers to counter City’s all-embracing threat become more extreme with every game.

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After rattling off win No.18 in a row, victory at Crystal Palace this weekend will see them equal the record set by Pep Guardiola’s previous club Bayern Munich of 19 successive wins in Europe’s major leagues.

For over an hour, Newcastle almost redefined the term “defensive football” but it wasn’t enough to shut out City with Raheem Sterling maintaining his magnificent form with a 17th goal of the season in the 31st minute.

The Magpies have now lost five in a row at home, their worst sequence since 1953 but still, it felt like a minor triumph for Rafa Benitez’ men.

They avoided the usual thrashing dished out by City and with quarter of an hour to go, it was Guardiola who withdrew a forward – Sergio Aguero – replacing him with Eliaquim Mangala.

And, after spending three-quarters of the game on the backfoot, Newcastle threw off the shackles late on though Dwight Gayle’s attempt to win a penalty with a blatant dive earned him a deserved yellow card. But this was largely a damage limitation exercise for the Geordies.

With three centre-halves, Benitez’ gameplan was all about containment, massing bodies behind the ball in a bid to stem the sky blue tidal wave. It led to a strangely subdued atmosphere inside one of football’s great cauldrons. Manchester City’s majesty means it’s not just their opponents who are beaten before a ball’s kicked but their followers too.

With just 11 minutes gone, Vincent Kompany’s game was over. But it was a measure of the contest’s flow, that Guardiola chose to replace the injury-plagued defender with Gabriel Jesus.

Play was compressed not only in Toon territory but in the final third of the pitch. For much of the contest, there wasn’t anyone within 70 yards of City keeper Ederson.

With the visitors enjoying almost 90 per cent of possession, it was no surprise that chances soon arrived despite the black and white wall in front of City.

Aguero might have scored twice in the opening 20 minutes and had a hat-trick by the interval.

From Fernandinho’s lofted pass, he stabbed against the foot of the far post in the seventh minute and 11 minutes later, forced a stunning save out of Rob Elliot who acrobatically kept out his glancing header following Kevin De Bruyne’s free-kick.

City’s record goal scorer went close again with a 25-yard screamer which struck the upright before Sterling pounced in the 31st minute.

With Newcastle affording De Bruyne far too much space, he weighed up his options before delivering an inch-perfect chip towards Sterling who scored his 17th goal of the season with a crisp half-volley.

Rather than open the floodgates, it stirred Newcastle into an instant response.

When Kyle Walker failed to cut out DeAndre Yedlin’s cross, the ball dropped at the feet of Rolando Aarons whose lob eluded Ederson only for Nicolas Otamendi to head off the line under pressure from Joselu.

It was a fleeting moment for the Magpies who quickly resorted to defending for their lives.

There was no let-up for the Toon after the break. Sterling scooped just wide, Elliot denied Ilkay Gundogan after Mo Diame had carelessly lost possession and De Bruyne inexplicably sliced wide.

He was more accurate with his next attempt, crashing his drive against the post with Aguero’s follow-up being disallowed for offside.

Gayle headed narrowly wide in the closing minutes but that apart, there were few scares for City.

MANCHESTER CITY KEEP RAKING IN THE VICTORIES AND KEEP BREAKING RECORDS

#football news #FOOTBALL UPDATE #manchester city #manchester city news #premier league #PREMIER LEAGUE NEWS #SOCCER NEWS #SOCCER UPDATE #sports news #sports update

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mahaliavasey21-blog · 7 years

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'FIFA 18' Isn't Out Yet And I'm Already In Love

The creators of FIFA are keen that that is the case in their game too. She has a keen interest in quite a lot of topics. In FIFA 18 you're going to get licensed Bundesliga and two lower league games from Germany. Should you beloved this article as well as you would like to receive guidance regarding fifa coins ps4; www.totsites.com, i implore you to stop by the web site. One or Two informs and he’ll be heading for the Gullit Gang. The group stages of the World Cup are better than the Champions League because they've more drama as a team must win at the very least one game and might only lose one to be able to qualify for the subsequent round. How they got there: A significant 1-0 win over Uruguay in their penultimate game effectively sealed Ecuador's place of their third finals in four World Cups. Initially, nine countries placed bids for the 2018 FIFA World Cup, but Mexico later withdrew from proceedings, and Indonesia's bid was rejected by FIFA in February 2010 after the Indonesian government failed to submit a letter to support the bid. From the character models to the texture of the dribbling, almost everything feels quite far removed from FIFA 18 on PS4 and Xbox One.

Please bear in mind that just one Web App link from the official EA SPORTS domains. No one is best placed than him to say that," Perez told Cadena Ser radio. Rafa Benitez is only known for his Champions League Title with Liverpool. Initially, it appeared Konami would profit from their 'premium partnership' with Barcelona by putting five Blaugrana stars on the cover: Lionel Messi, Neymar, Luis Suarez, Andres Iniesta and Rafinha. Desperate for success, clubs have used bumper television payments to stock their squads with talented overseas stars rather than developing their own players. That is suitable for most squads and may be considered a default if you are unsure about where you want to position them. Without a way to return on their journey, these Indians became part of the community, intermingled - intermarried and gave birth to many Xhosa clans - which may be traced back by the mere fact of the Xhosa clan name.

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FIFA 18 Release Date Revealed! Downloading FIFA 18 Concept Menu music/video on this site is just for review purpose. The Fifa 18 port appears to be a form of test run for the developer, to see how their games sell on the console. FIFA 12 - BOOTS. He is worth every little bit of his salary. LuLuUAE and Webstore (bit.ly/2vmTQkX) for AED 399 only! All of them are released in or close to September. In that case, you're in for a treat. Regardless of the Journey or not, that is full of features, and all of them you possibly can take them on the go. How long does it take to download? You can too subscribe to our FIFAAddiction RSS feed and add an RSS viewer/ticker to your browser via add ons or mobile. Submitting Squad Building Challenges. What platforms is it on? Africa also became an enormous market dumping ground for expired & banned products, resembling pharmaceutical medicines, pesticides and processed food, that were not legal or accepted for use in "the west".

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dpinoycosmonaut · 6 years

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A MONOPOLY OVER HEARTBREAKS?

by Bert A. Ramirez / September 8, 2018

Rafael Nadal, defending champion in the US Open, is done without being able to defend his title the way he should, on the finals’ ultimate stage. He again fell victim not exactly to the man opposite his side of the court but to a nagging, seemingly constant presence in his legendary career: injury.

Nadal had just engaged Juan Martin del Potro, his semifinal rival, in a scorching first set, losing in the tiebreaker 7-3, but the next set saw him gradually losing that spunk and fortitude that’s been his trademark, eventually offering less and less resistance as Del Potro continued to slam his patended big forehands. It was clear Nadal’s movement was limited at this point, and that something was wrong with the man known the world over as the toughest competitor in the sport, probably in any sport for that matter. True enough, after the second set won by Del Potro 6-2, Nadal shook his head and went to the umpire to tell him he’s had enough, the pain in his right knee too searing for him to offer any resistance worthy of a champion that he is.

"That was not a tennis match at the end. Just one player playing, the other staying on one side of the court," Nadal said afterwards. "I hate to retire, but staying one more set out there, playing like this, would be too much for me."

He was in tears in the postgame conference when asked if playing on hard courts made it harder for his knees, which have a history of tendinitis over the years. He knew that another heartbreak has come to pass, another opportunity has been wasted. Earlier in the third round, that right knee began to act up when he defeated Karen Khachanov, getting it taped before completing a four-set victory. His five-set classic win against Dominic Thiem in the quarterfinals, which lasted four hours. 49 minutes, must have surely taken its toll on that knee of his.

The retirement betrays a pattern in Nadal’s career that has seen him deprived of what could have been at least a very good chance at victory if injury did not rear its ugly head time and again. Just last January, Nadal was gliding through the Australian Open when he suddenly pulled up lame with a hip injury and retired in the fifth set of his quarterfinal match against Marin Cilic. In the same event in 2014, he looked all-too-powerful in eliminating old rival Roger Federer in the semifinals before suffering a back injury in the finals and losing to Stanislas Wawrinka, against whom he was 12-0 to that point, in four sets.

That’s three Grand Slam events lost by retirement, and many more Grand Slams missed or pulled out from through the years because of injury: 2004 French Open due to stress fracture in his left ankle, 2006 Australian Open (foot injury), 2009 Wimbledon (knee injury), 2010 Australian Open (pulled out in the quarterfinals because of a knee injury), 2012 US Open (tendinitis in knee), 2013 Australian Open (stomach virus), 2014 US Open (wrist injury), 2016 French Open (withdrew from the third round due to a left wrist injury), and 2016 Wimbledon (left wrist injury).

And how about the other ATP Tour events that he also missed due to such injury episodes? In 2009, he had to take a two-month sabbatical because of tendinitis in both knees. In 2013, he was sidelined for seven months for a left knee injury that he opted to rest rather than subject to surgery. Again, in 2014, Rafa had to miss much of the second half of the season because of a right wrist injury and appendicitis, for which he had to undergo an appendectomy. In 2016, he again suffered through a left wrist injury he sustained in the Madrid Open, and in 2017, Rafa ended the year prematurely with him in pain because of a right knee injury.

While injuries are, of course, part of any athlete’s career, Nadal seems to have had more share of the injuries – and a seeming monopoly of the ensuing heartbreaks – than any of his contemporaries, or tennis great from any era for that matter.

Rob Soria of Vavel, an international sports newspaper, precisely pointed to that when he wrote in 2014, “Following the completion of the 2014 US Open, Nadal will have either been hurt during or completely missed out on six different majors since 2009, which have unquestionably been his prime years on tour. Suggesting that the former No. 1 player in the world could have grabbed an extra two or three of those titles would not have been a stretch in the least and to be quite honest, it would have probably been a pretty safe bet.

“At the end of the day, none of us can say with any sort of certainty how many more titles Rafael Nadal would have won had he been healthier during his time on the ATP Tour. While it may ultimately be nothing more than a guessing game, the one thing tennis fans everywhere can agree on is injuries have robbed us of the opportunity of watching one of the finest players to ever grace a tennis court from doing what he does best on far too many occasions and that my friends is almost criminal.”

What’s ahead of Rafa now that injury has reared its ugly head again, and deprived him of a possible 18th Grand Slam title? His retirement against Del Potro was only his fourth loss in 49 matches this year, but it was the second by retirement in a Grand Slam event due to injury.

Rafa, who turned 32 last June 3, insists he has to constantly manage his body, stressing that the current injury is not one that will need much recovery from, just careful management. “Just about do treatment,” he said when asked about the recovery process. “It is not an injury that tells you, ‘three weeks off, you are back. Six months off you are back.’ I know what I have to do to be better as soon as possible. I am sure it will not be six months off of course, I was just making a comparison. I know what is going on with the knee. But the good thing is I know how I have to work to be better as soon as possible because we have a lot of experience on that.”

Whatever happens, one can expect that Nadal will go about this the way he always has – all out. One, however, can only wonder how much of the heartbreaks this seemingly indomitable creature can further take. We know he can endure physically, and will “punish” himself, as he himself puts it, in order to play the game he loves. As my own wife, however, puts it, there’s got to be a point where Rafa has to pause and think: After having achieved all this legendary status, is it worth to keep sacrificing yourself, and the opportunity to start your own family, the Spaniard having declared he won’t start a family unless he can devote his full time to it away from tennis?

“I will keep going. That is all,” Nadal simply said when asked about his plans. “These moments are tough but I have to keep going and working hard to get more opportunities. I am having two great years so I just have to enjoy the moments. This year has been fantastic until this moment. I am playing the right way and enjoying things. I am having success at the age of 32. A lot of people in this room, including me, didn't think I would be at this level at this age. I still have a passion for the game so I will keep fighting and working hard.”

That, it seems, gives one a glimpse of the Rafa Nadal spirit and mindset, if he has not finally gotten it yet.

(Photo from EPA)

#USOpen RafaNadal

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livevsongame-tv-blog · 6 years

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The Latest: Casey eliminated with 2 losses in Match Play

New Post has been published on https://livevsongame-tv.com/golf/the-latest-casey-eliminated-with-2-losses-in-match-play/20509/html

The Latest: Casey eliminated with 2 losses in Match Play

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) The Latest on the Dell Technologies Match Play (all times local):

5:20 p.m.

Patrick Reed is moving on. Jordan Spieth is going home, and searching for clues to his game.

Article continues below …

The match ended when Reed hit a 40-foot putt from behind the 17th green that looked as though it would go 8 feet by until it ran into the cup and disappeared for a birdie.

Spieth has made it out of his group just one time in four years of this format. He now has gone seven straight tournaments without a top 10.

—

4:35 p.m.

Ian Poulter is finally No. 2 behind Tiger Woods – at least when it comes to most matches won in the Match Play.

Poulter took advantage of Kevin Chappell and his ailing back and completed a 3-0 record to win his group. Poulter was 3 up when Chappell conceded the match at the turn.

That was the 26th victory for Poulter, who won this event in 2010. Woods, a three-time champion, has won 33 matches.

Poulter is playing the Match Play for the first time since 2015. He needs at least one more victory to assure moving into the top 50 in the world and qualify for the Masters.

Meanwhile, Jordan Spieth finally caught Patrick Reed, only to lose two of the next three holes. Reed had a 2 up lead with five to play.

—

3:55 p.m.

Paul Casey lost twice on Friday in The Match Play.

There are no head-to-head tiebreakers, so they went to a sudden-death playoff. On the second hole, Stanley hit his approach to 4 feet and made the birdie putt to advance to the fourth round.

—

3 p.m.

This World Golf Championship didn’t go as well as the last one for Phil Mickelson.

Mickelson was coming off a victory at the Mexico Championship for his third WGC title.

1:20 p.m.

A big rally by Bubba Watson allowed him to advance to the weekend at the Match Play without having to go wait around for a playoff.

He had to settle with shocking Marc Leishman in the opening round, even though there are no real upsets in golf, anyway.

Watson will face Brian Harman in the fourth round Saturday morning, a match between Georgia lefties.

—

1:15 p.m.

Brian Harman has defeated Rory McIlroy to become the first player to reach the weekend in the Dell Technologies Match Play.

Harman handed McIlroy his second loss of the week, 5 and 3, and won Group 6 to reach the fourth round at Austin Country Club. Harman was 2-0-1 in his group.

The winner from each of the 16 groups advances to the knockout stage over the weekend.

Sergio Garcia, Alex Noren and Justin Thomas also are in matches between undefeated players.

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clarencemawby4-blog · 7 years

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FIFA 18 Closed Beta!

The creators of FIFA are keen that that's the case of their game too. She has a keen interest in a wide range of topics. In FIFA fut 18 coins switch you'll get licensed Bundesliga and two lower league games from Germany. One or Two informs and he’ll be heading for the Gullit Gang. The group stages of the World Cup are better than the Champions League because they've more drama as a team must win at the least one game and can only lose one to be able to qualify for the following round. How they got there: An important 1-0 win over Uruguay in their penultimate game effectively sealed Ecuador's place of their third finals in four World Cups. Initially, nine countries placed bids for the 2018 FIFA World Cup, but Mexico later withdrew from proceedings, and Indonesia's bid was rejected by FIFA in February 2010 after the Indonesian government failed to submit a letter to support the bid. From the character models to the feel of the dribbling, almost everything feels quite far faraway from FIFA 18 on PS4 and Xbox One.

Please bear in mind that just one Web App link from the official EA SPORTS domains. Nobody is healthier placed than him to say that," Perez told Cadena Ser radio. Rafa Benitez is barely known for his Champions League Title with Liverpool. Initially, it appeared Konami would take advantage of their 'premium partnership' with Barcelona by putting five Blaugrana stars on the cover: Lionel Messi, Neymar, Luis Suarez, Andres Iniesta and Rafinha. Desperate for achievement, clubs have used bumper television payments to stock their squads with talented overseas stars rather than developing their own players. This is suitable for many squads and could be considered a default if you are unsure about where you want to put them. Without a means to return on their journey, these Indians became a part of the community, intermingled - intermarried and gave birth to many Xhosa clans - which might be traced back by the mere fact of the Xhosa clan name.

Its style of soccer, termed "catenaccio," entails scoring an early goal and then laying back with an impenetrable defense, seeking a 1-0 win. And in case you play against Real Madrid, it gets a bit of weird when the game becomes more possession-oriented rather than the signature counterattacking football which is typical to the team’s style. In August, Konami revealed that they had agreed a long-term and exclusive deal with David Beckham that may see the former Manchester United and Real Madrid star feature in the game. No, I’m not talking about the cover star, but the legendary Brazilian Ronaldo Nazario, who also happened to play for Real Madrid. Ronaldo has been announced because the 'global' cover star, meaning there is a possibility a vote will still happen in each region to choose a second, more local athlete. It’s not just players that EA wants to provide more individuality to. At noon PDT on Saturday, June 10 EA’ll begin the weekend of EA PLAY with an all-new broadcast experience specifically designed for the players viewing around the globe, with a live audience in Hollywood. The attributes have an identical increase but it doesn’t mean that each one attributes must be improved. Still, the excellent news means he should retain his normal FIFA 17 rating of 76, but he’s got the potential to reach the 80s pretty quickly.

FIFA 18 Release Date Revealed! Downloading FIFA 18 Concept Menu music/video on this site is only for review purpose. The Fifa 18 port seems to be a form of test run for the developer, to see how their games sell on the console. FIFA 12 - BOOTS. He is worth every bit of his salary. LuLuUAE and Webstore (bit.ly/2vmTQkX) for AED 399 only! All of them are released in or close to September. If that's the case, you might be in for a treat. Regardless of the Journey or not, that is packed with features, and all of them you may take them on the go. How long does it take to download? You can too subscribe to our FIFAAddiction RSS feed and add an RSS viewer/ticker to your browser via add ons or mobile. Submitting Squad Building Challenges. What platforms is it on? Africa also became an enormous market dumping ground for expired & banned products, resembling pharmaceutical medicines, pesticides and processed food, that were not legal or accepted to be used in "the west".

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jaeame-blog · 7 years

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Roger Federer holds off Frances Tiafoe, 19, in 5 sets to advance | US Open

World number one Rafa Nadal dismissed Dusan Lajovic 7-6 6-2 6-2 to ease into the US Open second round on Tuesday, setting the Spaniard on a collision course for a long overdue Flushing Meadows showdown with Roger Federer. Kenin, a Russian-born American, was making her third appearance at the Open as an amateur, which means she cannot collect any prize money from the tournament if she wants to pursue a college career. World No. 1 Rafael Nadal described the timing of Andy Murray's withdrawal from the US Open as "strange". Murray, the 2012 champion in New York, withdrew from the year's final grand slam on Saturday, citing a hip injury. If so, Kenin would have to pass up on the $50,000.

This young woman is ready to roar, and she made an emphatic statement about her potential when she knocked defending champion Angelique Kerber out of the US Open with a stunning 6-3, 6-1 first-round victory Tuesday under the closed roof at Arthur. Roger Federer overcame a slow start, then a late lapse, and needed five sets to win a topsy-turvy first-round match at the US Open against 19-year-old American Frances Tiafoe. US Open 2017: Roger Federer heaps praise on Frances Tiafoe after five-set thriller.She has won no titles, and is 0-9 against Top-20 opponents. Tournament top seeds Rafael Nadal and Karolina Pliskova both rolled in straight sets, as did 22-year-old American hopeful Madison Keys.

Kerber's ascent stalled this year, though. ROGER FEDERER praised 19-year-old Frances Tiafoe for pushing him all the way in his first-round match in the US Open, eventually winning 4-6, 6-2, 6-1, 1-6, 6-4.While the rain came Tuesday, there was still some spectacular tennis on Day 2 of the US Open. Some players at this year's US Open are making daring fashion choices that scream everything from shimmering sophistication to retro dorky. The five-time US Open champion launched his campaign with a 4-6, 6-2, 6-1, 1-6, 6-4 win over #NextGenATP home hopeful Frances Tiafoe on Tuesday, rebounding after a shaky start in front of a packed crowd. Roger Federer might be the favorite to win the 2017 US Open, but his debut on Tuesday hardly went as planned. US Open 2017: Rafael Nadal struggles to understand Andy Murray withdrawal.

#US Open

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wionews · 7 years

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French Open men's final preview: Wawrinka last hurdle to Nadal's La Decima dream

Rafael Nadal insists winning a record 10th French Open title on Sunday, and his 15th career Grand Slam crown, will not be his greatest achievement.

His proudest moment, he believes, came at his lowest ebb at the end of 2012 and start of 2013 when it seemed certain that his career-long battle against knee and wrist injuries would finally be lost.

But, from a seemingly fruitless position, he then engineered one of the sport's most remarkable seasons.

"It's true that 10 is a beautiful number, but actually my favourite is nine," said Nadal, the nine-time champion at Roland Garros who faces 2015 winner Stan Wawrinka in the final.

"For sure if it becomes 10 it will be my favourite.

"But the thing that I am more proud of in my career probably is 2013. It was amazing."

Nadal missed seven months of action between 2012 and 2013 due to a left knee injury and then a stomach virus.

But when he returned, he swept to the French and US Open titles and reclaimed the world number one spot.

"I had too many problems on my knee, so I was not able to practise at all. And I finished the year being World No. 1, winning here (in Paris), winning the US Open. So that's the thing that I am more proud," said Nadal.

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The 31-year-old Spaniard has coasted into a 10th French Open final without dropping a set.

While Wawrinka needed the best part of five hours to defeat world number one Andy Murray, Nadal brushed aside Dominic Thiem, the conqueror of Novak Djokovic in straight sets.

His career record at Roland Garros reads 78 wins and just two losses.

On Sunday, he will be playing in his 22nd Grand Slam final.

On his way to the title match, he has shipped just 29 games, six fewer than when he made the 2012 final and just two more than the record of 27 conceded by Bjorn Borg in his 1978 trophy season.

Revenge not in Nadal 'vocab'

However, despite boasting a 15-3 head-to-head superiority over 32-year-old Wawrinka, the oldest man in the Paris final in 44 years, Nadal is wary of complacency.

"Nine here is probably difficult. If I did it, probably somebody else gonna do it, because I don't consider myself very special," he said.

The final will also be emotional for Toni Nadal, the uncle and coach of the Spanish star.

He will step down after being at his nephew's side since boyhood.

"It's not been special but it will be next year when I am watching it on my TV at home," Toni, 56, told AS.

"At the moment I am not thinking about the fact it will be the last time that I go to the centre court in Paris.

"I am only going to see my nephew and to see if he does well. When I watch him on TV I will be just as happy."

Wawrinka has only beaten Nadal once on clay in six meetings.

But there is no doubt that he is a big match player.

The Swiss has won all three Grand Slam finals in which he has appeared -- in 2014 he beat Nadal in Australia and then Djokovic in the 2015 Paris final and again in last year's US Open finale.

The win in Melbourne was his first after 12 straight losses against Nadal.

But Nadal said revenge for that defeat has never entered his thinking.

"Revenge is not part of my vocab. I don't think it would be the right thing to do to see it as a revenge," said Nadal who withdrew before last year's third round at the French Open with a wrist injury.

Wawrinka will be the third oldest winner of the men's title if he succeeds on Sunday.

"To play Rafa on clay in the French Open in a final is probably the biggest challenge you can have in tennis," he said.

"He's the best player ever on clay. He's going for his 10th Roland Garros, so it's something really impressive, something tough.

"I will have to play my best tennis. But again, I did in the past."

(AFP)

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footyplusau · 7 years

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Giants demolish woeful Suns

GWS 7.4 10.8 16.12 24.16 (160) Gold Coast 1.2 5.4 7.8 8.10 (58)

Goals – GWS: Cameron 6, Greene 5, Johnson 3, Kelly 3, Smith 3, Lobb 2, Shiel, Reid Gold Coast: Martin 3, Wright, Witts, Kolodjashnij, Ablett, Barlow

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Rafael Nadal reaches Miami Open final

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Previous slide Next slide

Plays of the Week

Ingenious catches, last minute tries and spectacular goals, these are the plays of the week.

Rafael Nadal reaches Miami Open final

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Rafael Nadal reaches Miami Open final

Rafa rolled by unseeded Italian Fabio Fognini 6-1 7-5 to reach his fifth Miami Open final.

Castro controversy snares draw for Perth

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Castro controversy snares draw for Perth

Perth Glory have come away with a 1-all draw with Adelaide United in Round 25 thanks to a controversial free kick awarded to Diego Castro.

LeBron passes Shaq on NBA’s scoring list

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LeBron passes Shaq on NBA’s scoring list

LeBron James has moved up to seventh on the NBA all-time points-scoring list, but he couldn’t prevent his team’s loss to Chicago Bulls.

Cowboys too strong for Rabbitohs

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Cowboys too strong for Rabbitohs

The North Queensland Cowboys have beaten the South Sydney Rabbitohs 20-6, on the back of a solid defensive effort.

Dogs bark loudest in replay classic

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Dogs bark loudest in replay classic

The Bulldogs toppled Sydney in the grand final replay that lived up to all expectations.

Nick Kyrgios wonder shot at Miami Open

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Nick Kyrgios wonder shot at Miami Open

Nick Kyrgios pulls off an amazing return during his quarter final clash at the Miami Open.

Ronaldo honoured with bizarre bust

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Ronaldo honoured with bizarre bust

The airport in Madeira, Portugal, is renamed in honour of Cristiano Ronaldo, but a new statue of the football star overshadows the event.

Plays of the Week

Ingenious catches, last minute tries and spectacular goals, these are the plays of the week.

Best – GWS: Greene, Cameron, Kelly, Mumford, Ward, Kennedy, Wilson Gold Coast: Miller, Rosa, Martin, Kolodjashnij

Injuries – GWS: Gold Coast:

Apprenticeship complete: Toby Greene of the Giants. Photo: Getty Images

Umpires: Nick Foot, Robert Findlay, Shane McInerney

Crowd: 8022

VOTES GWS v Adelaide (James Buckley) Toby Greene (GWS) 9 Jeremy Cameron (GWS) 9 Josh Kelly (GWS) 8 Callan Ward (GWS) 8 Shane Mumford (GWS) 8

The Giants have recalibrated their season with a 102-point thumping of a woeful Gold Coast Suns on Saturday, exposing the vast gulf in talent between the AFL’s two newest expansion clubs.

Jeremy Cameron kicked six goals for the the Giants . Photo: Brett Hemmings/AFL Media

Toby Greene kicked five goals in his history-making hundredth game while Jeremy Cameron bagged a half dozen in a dominant performance as last weekend’s round-one blemish against the Crows in Adelaide was put to bed in front of 8022 fans at Spotless Stadium.

For long periods the Giants produced the kind of slick football which has them labelled at premiership favourites this season. Gold Coast, meanwhile, a club one year further advanced in its existence, will again struggle to make a maiden finals appearance after dishing up the most insipid performance so far of this fledgling AFL season.

Mercurial: Steve Johnson. Photo: Mark Metcalfe

They’ve managed just 10 wins in the past two seasons, while GWS have racked up almost three times that amount – their latest by a record margin over the Queensland expansion club.

Both clubs were given access to draft picks and list concessions to build a team to compete at this level. They boast similar amounts of first-round draft picks on their roster, but the gap in talent and potential is yawning.

Greene made history for the Giants, becoming the club’s first draftee to play 100 games in the orange and charcoal. Kevin Sheedy said during the week that a century of AFL games was the equivalent of finishing an apprenticeship, and last year’s All Australian celebrated in style with arguably his best performance to date.

He was joined on Saturday by 10 teammates who sit within the 50-100 game bracket, several of which will also finish their AFL apprenticeships in the months to come.

One of those is Cameron who did as he pleased throughout, working tirelessly across the forward half of the ground in the absence of fellow big man Jonathon Patton who withdrew before the opening bounce with the hip injury sustained against the Crows in round one.

That followed up from the four he collected last weekend, but this was a much more rounded performance from the prolific left-footer.

Another of those in the 50 to 100 bracket is Josh Kelly who was just as influential as Cameron, helping himself to three goals and starring once more with 27 disposals in the middle of the ground.

The waxing lyrical of these Giants youngsters could go on, but in fairness they were barely challenged by the Suns, particularly in the first and fourth quarters where GWS seemed to be enjoying nothing more than a training run.

A Rodney Eade spray at quarter time when the margin was already 38 seemed to wake up the visitors and they managed to just about stop the rot kicking the last three goals to half time.

They stood up for moments in the third quarter before an avalanche of orange and charcoal ran up the score in the final term.

But the damage was done early and it was irreparable.

Gary Ablett was invisible in the opening term and had just the one touch to quarter time. Devon Smith helped himself to two goals in the space of three minutes – marking the ball on both occasions while standing in acres of space on his own in the forward 50.

Smith nailed his third in the final term when the Giants were lining up to beef up the scoreboard. He had more to do on this occasion, and was good enough to snap it around the corner from 40m.

But this was the Greene-Cameron show right to the end, and they kicked five majors between them in the final quarter.

Steve Johnson finished with three brilliant goals and could’ve had a few more were it not for inaccuracy. Yet the veteran was nothing more than a sideshow in a Giants forward line which still has to welcome back Patton, and potentially even Brett Deledio who continues to recover from a calf injury.

Perhaps Giants coach Leon Cameron will opt to play Deledio in midfield when he eventually does overcome the calf problem. It would only serve to improve what is already very good service to the likes of Cameron, Greene and co.

The post Giants demolish woeful Suns appeared first on Footy Plus.

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3one3 · 7 years

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The Sequel - 795

It’s Time

André Schürrle, Juan Mata, other Chelsea/BVB players, and random awesome OC’s (okay they’re less random now but they’re still pretty awesome)

original epic tale

all chapters of The Sequel

“Double espresso latte for Prinzessin, babycino for Mausi. Chicken Caesar wrap and fries is coming. They’ll bring it. Here’s napkins.” Was that everything, André asked himself before taking his seat. Christina had just landed back in Dortmund for her Valentine’s visit, and she didn’t get to have lunch or even a snack since breakfast early in the morning, so they stopped at a brand new cafe to get her some mid-afternoon lunch on the way home from the airport.

“Thanks, babe. Did you lose your mom?” the rider questioned as she tested the temperature of the “babycino”- a small cup of steamed milk with a dash of cocoa powder mixed in, just the thing for kids who don’t want to feel left out when the adults sit down for coffee. Lukas was one of those kids. He’d begun to demand his sippy cup with the handle like a coffee mug in the morning when his parents and caretakers had coffee or tea with him over breakfast, as opposed to the various kinds without handles or in different shapes. For the time being, he was too excited about Mommy being back to care much about his drink. He was trying to show her all of his new animals. The storybook celebrated at the children’s reading his dad took him to was about farm animals, and the bookstore had small Beanie Baby style plush characters. Lukas got a cow, a pig, a lamb, a goat, a rooster, and a duck, and they were all on the small cafe table in front of his booster seat so that each one could be introduced to Mommy. They were called “Moo”, “Oik”, “Phiwip Lamm”, “Messi”, “Roo”, and “Quack”. Christina spent much of the time waiting for her drink thinking about how confusing it was going to be that André and Luise managed to teach the baby that sounds don’t have to be sounds and can actually be names. In her mind if you teach a child that the black and white blotchy square thing goes “moo” and then teach him that its name is “Moo”, the child might start thinking that the sound his dog Lucky makes is “lucky” instead of “bark”. These were the deep and philosophical matters that influenced her parenting style.

“She’s waiting for my smoothie and her blended mocha something or other,” the footballer said about his mother, who was waiting for Melanie to come pick her up so they could spend the night at a spa in Düsseldorf. The pregnant girl was in need of some pampering, and in need of some attention from a loved one. Melanie spent all of January in West Palm Beach with Rafa, but then she had to return to Europe for work and had been on the road with the FEI at their Division 2 shows for two weeks. That wasn’t easy in light of her pregnancy. Mom and daughter were going to get some massages and facials and have a mother-daughter Valentine’s day like when Melanie and André were kids and the only one giving them chocolate, teddy bears, and flowers was Luise. Christina was kind of jealous, actually. She almost wished she’d been invited. Her Valentine’s plan was to spend the day with André and Lukas and then say goodbye to the player before dinner because he had to stay with the team. Wednesday was a matchday.

“What kind of smoothie did you get?”

“Mango acai.”

“Daddy, Quack is hungry,” Lukas complained with deep seeded contriteness. The rider couldn’t help but chuckle at him, and then full on laugh when Daddy pretended the stuffed animal’s hunger was a serious emergency, glancing around frantically for something to feed him and then assuring him he would take care of it. André almost knocked the table over when he got up to fetch a saltshaker from the nearest empty one. I don’t even know if he’s hurrying to remedy this hungry duck situation because he thinks if he doesn’t then Lulu Schü is going to get upset, or because he’s just pretending to be very concerned for he duck’s empty stomach, Christina thought while the player dumped salt onto a napkin. “Moo is hungry too!”

“They can share. Here. Put all the animals around the food and they can each have some,” he reasoned. She scooted his chair forward so that Lukas could reach the toys and place them in a circle around the salt pile. She also decided that her husband was a genius for going with the salt and not grabbing some sugar packets. That could have turned into a sticky mess, and on a macro level, taught Lukas that sugar is the answer to hunger, which was something she definitely didn’t want him to learn.

“Drink your milk while they have their lunch,” she suggested to him once he was pushed back again. He couldn’t be trusted with that much access to the table. He would abuse it to steal silverware or food, or knock things over. Christina handed him the paper cup and willed him not to drop it. Luise did the exact same thing. She handed her son a wet plastic cup and warned him that it was slippery and to be careful not to spill.

“How did your adidas meeting go this morning, pretty girl?” he inquired after sampling his smoothie. Having his wife visit not on the back of a competition was a great thing for him, he hoped. It meant he didn’t have to endure whatever aftermath of the competition, like he got her on a clean slate without a drama to color her state of mind or give her something to want to obsess over. And he was desperate for her counsel. Dortmund managed to lose to last-place Darmstadt on Saturday. Many regular starters were unavailable to play and he still didn’t get in the team. Tuchel changed the formation and tried to put square pegs in rectangular holes, and it was hard not to take that as a personal slight when there were other ways to handle the personnel situation that would have included him and seemed much more logical. The manager called on him with 15 minutes remaining, at 2-1, and withdrew Marco, meaning André was expected to make something happen with a bunch of kids whose poor judgement and weak mentality had dug the hole for the team in the first place and without the only member of the squad with current scoring streak to speak of. He couldn’t. The loss was an embarrassment. On top of that, the club was in big trouble with the league over fan violence the week before. They had a huge fine to play, and would have to empty the famous Yellow Wall for a match. The media had been pushing a “Dortmund in crisis” line for weeks and the players kept pushing back, telling reporters that it was a manufactured crisis and that everything was fine in the team. The loss at the weekend gave the crisis talk some substance. Doubts about Tuchel turned up in volume, and the season-long transfer debate rhetoric got a shot of electricity. Fans and observers wanted to know how the club could spend so much and bring in so many players and end up fighting to get into the Champions League places. And speaking of the Champions League, Benfica was coming to town in two days. The club’s record signing was ready to be on the receiving end of spousal support instead of dishing it out.

“It was okay but I don’t know why they even consult me. They ignored everything I said about the first collection, and most of the things I’ve said in development meetings since then. The new stuff is clothes I would wear to run errands or...get coffee. They’re really comfy looking, and it’s all typical dull Chris colors, luxurious fabrics, blah blah, but it’s not stuff I would ride in.”

“They’re trying to sell your lifestyle,” Luise pointed out. “I think riders would buy the clothes just to feel they are like you, not necessarily to be better outfitted for their riding or something like this. Footballers only wear one outfit to play. Think of all the items in the club shops.”

“I guess. I just don’t really like having my name on something I wouldn’t even ride in, even though it’s not my actual name...exactly.... This is a really good latte, by the way. We should come here more.”

“It’s a long way from the house,” André reminded. He saw Christina’s face fall, and hoped it was a consequence of disappointment about the coffee and not a bigger house-related thing. Her footing installation was underway there, and as he got no panicked or apologetic calls yet, he assumed it was going to plan. More importantly, Zoe told him the house could be done in as little as a week. He planned to talk to his wife about it once they were alone. His idea was to schedule the big move during her Gothenburg trip. That way everything from the London house could be packed, shipped, delivered, and installed all while she was away, and most of the horses were going to the show with her so that would make transferring everything from one barn to the other more convenient too. He didn’t know if that was as easy as he expected though, logistically. For example, he didn’t know how the new barn could be set up and ready to receive the horses from Sweden if Tom and Kyle were in Sweden with them, and he didn’t know if the kids were ready to move that soon, or what would happen with Isandro and the Hazard ponies. The Argentine didn’t have a new job yet, and André didn’t know if Box Hill had space for Wizzy and Cornflakes right away.

They spent the rest of the cafe stop fighting over French fries. They were a hot commodity and everyone wanted some. Christina was happy to share her crispy potatoes with Lukas, but she told André to go get his own. He kept stealing them two or three at a time whenever she picked up her wrap. It was big and falling apart and was thus a two-handed job. That left her fries defenseless. A French fry feud was the most fulfilling thing to happen to him since she last left.

“How is your booboo? Is it going away?” he asked her later in the evening, when they were finally alone. His girl changed after putting Lukas to bed, and rejoined him on the couch in her home uniform- a little white t-shirt and little black underwear. André lifted her bare leg to check out the damage he did a week earlier. The ugly bruise was still there. His challenge during their “game” with Lukas was bad enough that the evidence wasn’t going away.

“Oh not to worry- it only hurts every single time I squeeze my leg on a horse.”

“So, like, 300 times per day?”

“Correct.”

“I’m sorry,” he laughed. “I didn’t know you were going to just stop.”

“Do you like this one?” Christina invited herself to sit in his lap so that she could show him a big swollen and presumably black and blue spot on the top of her head. “I dropped my fork under the table at Stamford Bridge yesterday and in the time it took to bend down and get it I forgot that I was under a table and thought I could just sit up again. I was really off my game yesterday,” she sniggered. The footballer knew she was referencing the three separate occasions on which she called him by accident from her car while trying to operate the GPS.

“Accident Prone Prinzessin is a walking disaster, yeah?” he asked before kissing her head near the bump. She folded her legs and hunkered down, preparing to stay for the long haul. Sitting on him was the high point of her day. There was some kind of special reading powers in her butt. If she sat on him, then she could magically see into his heart and his head and know how he was doing. The butt-read was significantly more accurate than listening to him explain his football frustrations, or even watching him when he talked about them. Her nicely sculpted behind was readying its report.

“More like a sitting disaster. I don’t even have to walk to get myself hurt. I do it sitting down.”

“Should I put some pillows around you now for your own protection?”

“No, you should just protect me yourself.” Christina leaned over on one side of his chest and hugged across the other. “Protection services are part of the marriage contract, buddy.”

“Despite all physical evidence to the contrary, my baby can protect herself just fine.” André put his hand over hers on his shirt and stroked back and forth over the back of her palm and her wrist. And she’s doing a much better job of it right now than a few months ago, so I’m thankful, he thought.

“You’re pretty good at looking after yourself too, but are you okay right now?” His wife glanced up near his chin and dropped her cute tone. She was asking a serious question. “The Dortmund press is LIT right now. I know you said it’s not as bad inside the team as out, but is that still the case? Are you dealing okay? Are you pretending so that I don’t say “I told you so”?”

“I’m better now that you’re around.” The team’s under-utilized and overpriced midfielder aggressively tousled her hair, immediately realized she just showed him the big bump on her head, cringed, and hugged the whole thing to his face like that would stop it from hurting. “I’m sorry! I forgot!”

“I’ll survive.” The rider had quite a glare on her face but he couldn’t see it. “Seriously though- do you need to talk or anything?”

“I would like to just enjoy having someone to hang out with who doesn’t remind me of the team, has a prettier smile than my friends, and smells nice.”

“I thought you were talking about Luke until you got to “smells nice”. How much longer do we have to wait for potty training you think?”

“A long ass time.”

“Do you want to go not-out dancing with me?”

“Come again?”

“Juan invited me out dancing last night. The guys were going to some V-Day themed party. And I was like yeah, I do kinda feel like going out dancing, but I wanna go out dancing with boyfriend, so I didn’t go. But I still feel like dancing. Do you want to make yourself a drink to hold and sip while you sit around not dancing while I dance? I’m probably gonna do it in the kitchen.” Christina blinked up at him with large and expectant eyes. Her playful and affectionate mood was one of his favorites, and exactly the one he needed on that Monday night. It was like being a kid and having a friend over to play with, rather than having his roommate around. A roommate is so familiar and routine that hanging with one can be dull in comparison to having a friend over for a playdate.

“I don’t really feel like having a drink-drink, but I’ll drink some wine while you go out dancing in the kitchen,” he winked. Then he spotted what his wink did to her eyes. Both of them swelled for just a second, like a heart beating, and her bare lips curved up. “Will you be dressing up for this night out in?”

“Hell no. I’m gonna make dinner while I’m out in dancing though. Chicken-veggie-grain-bowl, or shrimp?”

“Shrimp! Can you make the Sriracha sauce?”

“Yessir,” his playdate nodded. “Phone, please.” She used his iPhone to play The Weeknd’s “Love To Lay” through the TV’s sound system, put her slippers on, and danced into the kitchen to defrost some shrimp and start cutting up vegetables to go with the bulgur she made earlier for Lukas. It was no mere foot tapping and head bobbing with her favorite tune from Starboy. Christina danced like she had pre-arranged choreography for the song. She sang into a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc after pouring two glasses. She rubbed her butt on a cabinet with an avocado in her hand. Her usual dance partner leaned over the counter and watched her while he sipped the wine.

I bet she dances to this in the shower all the time or something, he reasoned. She knows exactly which move she wants to do for each part, and she loooooooooves this song. I looooooooove her butt in those panties. Very small, no-frill stretchy black panties are Chris’ signature look. That’s what adidas should sell with her name. If I get a chair from the table and go sit in there, is she going to grind on my lap like she does in the club?

“You don’t have any mint, do you?” the tiny dancer inquired when her first song began to fade out.

“No.”

“Is there basil left from last week?”

“Yeah but it might be bad.”

“Are you gonna come dance wiff me?” She turned her bottom lip over and lifted up on her toes at the big butcher-block cart.

“Maybe.”

“Get the basil and come over here. You can dance with me and chop leaves while I massacre this avocado.”

“I was going to eat that for breakfast tomorrow.”

“It’s Valentine’s Day. You think I’m gonna let you eat some crappy avocado toast for breakfast? Chyea.” Christina took a few steps back to select a knife from the block on the counter, and André detoured to her before going to the refrigerator to get the basil. He wanted to give her a smooch.

“I love you,” he reminded her with a calm and close-lipped smile after.

“Yeah well no one is going to say “I don’t love you” to a girl with a large knife.”

At what point do I ruin this nice mood she’s in and tell her the house is almost ready? The player’s own question made for an unexpected mental shudder. He knew for more than 24 hours that he would be delivering the news, and for more than 24 hours he anticipated a bad reaction. It wasn’t until that night that he realized how awful it is to expect one’s wife to be upset to learn that they can live together again soon. He chopped not-so-fresh basil and reflected on that, wondering what it said about them and their relationship. It’s not really that I think she doesn’t look forward to being settled with me again, one delegation in his head argued. It’s more that I know she doesn’t want to leave London and hates change. It’s the reality and proximity to the upheaval that I think is going to bring her down. That’s okay, isn’t it? That’s not the same as her reacting in some way other than bouncing up and down with happiness because she’s dreading being a family full-time again. I don’t believe that anymore. She wants to be together more. Shouldn’t I expect that eagerness to outweigh the dread of change though? Shouldn’t she be happier about getting settled and being together and launching our new life than she is sad or depressed about finally ending this terrible half-way situation we currently have? She’s had 7 months to be upset about having to leave the house and the barn and her friends and her hairdresser and everything. Shouldn’t she be ready to celebrate the new start by now? Is it really bad that my instinct is that she won’t be?

Christina kept dancing while they chopped up broccoli florets, carrots, yellow squash, Nappa cabbage, and spinach. That wasn’t necessarily her first choice assembly of vegetables for Sriracha shrimp, but it was what she found in the refrigerator. All of that went in the steamer and she heated the hot sauce in a sauté pan with minced garlic and butter. André just stood around when he was finished with his knife work. He gulped wine and thought about when to broach the subject of the move.

“You’re awfully quiet,” his wife observed after the initial loud sizzle from tossing defrosted shrimp into the hot pan waned. It was her belief that if he went 5 minutes without doing or saying something dumb and/or silly, there was something bothering him.

“I wouldn’t want to talk over Keith Urban and Carrie Witherspoon.”

“Carrie Underwood,” she snorted, shaking her head as well as the frying pan.

“Whatever. They’re the same bad country music,” the pseudo-striker shrugged.

“Reese Witherspoon is an actress, you dumbass. She doesn’t make country music.”

“I saw her in that country movie doing country music!”

“The Johnny Cash movie? That was just a role. She’s not a musician.”

“Fine. This song still sucks.”

“Your face sucks.”

“I’m going to throw this lemon at your face.”

“Would you rather throw it in my face or have it zested on your shrimp?”

“That’s a tough choice, to be honest.”

“Shut up.”

“The painters started at the house today. Zoe scheduled the final pre-move-in walkthrough for next Monday.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. It’s finally time, Prinzessin. It’s time to move into our new home.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“That’s it?”

“Yeah,” Christina whispered as she turned away to look down at the shrimp, a lump expanding in her throat like the world’s fastest growing cancer. It felt like cancer, too. Sickness descended. Her stomach was uneasy, the steam from the food suddenly made her skin clammy on the outside and it felt white hot on the inside. There was anxiety, like when she knew she was about to be ill, and there was instant sadness. Their arrangement wasn’t working and she was desperate for long lasting relief from that. Going all in in Germany was never the permanent solution she expected to fix it though. That was the answer she was still nervous about, and kind of dreading. She still didn’t want to give up her London life, even if London didn’t always feel like home anymore anyway. She still feared change. The devil she knew was undeniably awful. There was still the possibility that the devil she didn’t know could be worse, and that one was much harder to escape or hide from. “I need the lemon now.” She held her hand out for the fruit without taking her eyes off the seafood. André handed it over but her reaction was not the one he was hoping for.

“Is that not what you want?” His question wasn’t about food.

“It’s not that it’s not what I want.” I’ve done plenty of thinking on this and I know how to explain it now, Christina reminded herself. “What I want is to live in our home in London with you, and for you to play for Chelsea, and for my riding to be what it was. None of those things are going to happen so there isn’t much point in wanting it. So I do want to move into the new house and be together- it’s just that it’s my second choice.”

“Are you ever going to let me off the hook for doing what’s best for me?” Her partner was frank and his voice carried a sharp edge.

“I don’t have you on one.”

“Right.”

“What do you want me to fucking say? I’m not standing here telling you I’m mad that we’re standing here. I’m not standing here telling you I don’t want to be having all our fights in a kitchen in Germany from now on. I’m just telling you that I would rather be standing with you in a kitchen in London because I loved the life we had there and I know it works there and I don’t know that we’ll love it here or that it works here, so I’m not overwhelmed with happiness that it’s time to find out.” The rider and chef turned off the heat under the pan and ignored the surly German to her left. She threw a handful of the basil in and stirred it around with her tongs. “I’m leaving everything I love to be with who I love. I made that choice because who I love is more important than what I love, but you can’t expect me to only feel good about it. I’m not like you. You came here and pretended you were only excited about Dortmund, and looking forward, like you weren’t also disappointed in yourself for not making the Chelsea career you wanted, like you wouldn’t miss the club, and the city, and our home. You just threw a sheet over all of that and forgot about it. That’s not me. I carry the hard stuff around with me too.”

“You think I don’t?”

“You certainly don’t act like it.”

One thing is for sure. She is over the wounded animal act from the last however many months, André decided. Someone has re-grown a backbone. He wasn’t necessarily thrilled with the revelation- not in that moment anyway. He watched her assemble the bowls of bulgur, steamed vegetables, spicy shrimp, and fresh avocado and totally refuse to look him in the eye, or even in his general direction. And he didn’t know what to make of it. I wanted her to smile and say “That’s great! I can’t wait!” I get that she doesn’t want to leave London and she’s sad about it. Why is it unreasonable to think she should be more excited about being here with me than she is upset about leaving there?

“I didn’t ignore that I was upset about quitting Chelsea, or that I had to be away from you,” the player told her while she drizzled her creations with a bit more Sriracha. “I was just more excited and happy about the new things than I was upset about the old ones. I don’t expect you to be only happy to come here. I hoped you would be more excited about our future than you are sad about leaving our past. That’s all.”

“Well I’m not, and before you have a cow, it’s not because of us. It’s because it’s unknown. Here.” Christina turned 45 degrees and thrust the striped bowl of food into his waist. Her husband hated the way she talked about everything. To him it was all negative, and final, and unforgiving. He could tell she was upset, and that she was driven by emotions other than anger, but it was still wholly unpleasant to confront. I’m just going to move on. I don’t know how many times we have to “re-litigate” this. That’s the word she always uses when she watches political people on TV make bad arguments about the past to try to defend something in the present. She says it’s just bad arguing tactics. I don’t know. Whatever.

“Fine. Do you want to do the move while you’re in Sweden? Zoe has a company that comes and packs up the house after you leave and puts it all in the new house by the time you get there. She tells them where to put everything. I’m sure it can be changed when you-“

“No. Why on Earth would I want to be stressing out over an international move during my last chance to qualify for the World Cup Final? And what about the horses? We cant jus-“

“This is what I said would happen.” André put his bowl on the counter and folded his arms. “I said you would keep finding reasons to put it off. This show, and that show, and-“

“Why are you looking for a fight? I just said I don’t want to move during a major horse show. What is so wrong with that? Would you want to move your whole life to a new a place while you’re traveling for a Champions League semifinal or something? God.” Christina looked disgusted, and she tossed the dirty pan into the sink with all the care of a deliveryman on overtime. “I have four weeks off between Sweden and the Final in the US and I would be “happy” to move during any one of them. It’s not like I just said “maybe next year”. Christ.”

“Calm down.”

“You calm down.”

The player got up from the counter he was leaning on and picked up her bowl to offer it to her, almost like an olive branch. It was within him to realize he had just jumped to an unfair conclusion, and he was sorry for that part of the conversation at least. She shook her head and refused to take the bowl.

“I’m not hungry anymore.”

“Chris...”

“How can-“ She took a deep breath, sighed, and felt the backbone he thought he saw dissolve away. The lump came back, and her face felt hot, and tears couldn’t be too far behind. There were much more complicated things on her mind than the logistics of moving, whether it happened while she was busy or not. “How can you think that whatever is wrong with us- whatever makes us have these fights- is just magically going to go away because we live in the same house? Or that it’s magically going to be fine if I can win things with Dirk all the time? Juan says-“

“I couldn’t give a fuck less what Juan says.”

“No, listen. Just listen,” she sighed, looking up from the floor for a second. “He says the strength of a relationship is what you see in bad times, when it’s hard. Don’t you think we should be okay regardless of what things are happening outside of us? Don’t you think it’s a bad sign that we have to rely on outside circumstances to believe that we’ll be good again? Our relationship shouldn’t depend on our geolocation and my aging horse. You do this thing where you can see a solution to a problem so you think it’s fine. You saw Dortmund as a solution and ignored all the logical counterpoints and now you’re suffering for your one-track mind. I asked you what happens when Marco is fit, and you said it would be fine because Tuchel wanted you. It’s not fine. You don’t get to play. It’s a major drama. You always do this. You have a problem, and you make up a plan to solve it, and you latch onto the plan and believe it has to work, but you ignore anything that goes against the plan, and the odds on the plan. Just because you can see a way out of something doesn’t mean it’s going to work. What happens when we’re all settled in the house and Dirk breaks records and we’re still fighting in the kitchen because you doubt whether or not I want to live with you, and that I’m holding a grudge because you wanted to come here? Why do you think those will go away? You need to live with me to believe I want to live with you? Don’t you think there’s something wrong with that?”

“You’re criticizing me for having belief in us and for thinking of ways to make our lives better, but I don’t hear you coming up with anything else.” The footballer tried to keep his emotions in check despite feeling attacked for being himself. He didn’t see his affinity for solving problems as a weakness. “If you don’t think being together and improving your situation with Dirk is going to make everything better for us- that we have some fundamental problems that have nothing to do with being apart and you being unhappy- then what do you think will fix everything?”

“I don’t know, and that’s why I’m unhappy, and why I’m stressed, and why I’m not excited to move. Not only do I not think moving fixes everything, it also has the potential to confirm that our problems are deeper than that, and then I know for sure that we’re in trouble, and I can’t even get relief from the fights once I live here.”

“Yeah but I know when we’re together everyday that I don’t have the doubt about what you want. You show me. And I know that you’re always happier and capable of more happiness and great things when you and the horse are doing well together. I have reasons for believing in my solutions. Let’s eat, okay? Let’s just take a step back.”

“You have reasons and when you settle on them you block out everything else. You had reasons why you’d be happier playing here too, and blinders on to block out all the reasons that were in contradiction to the ones you chose to believe. I don’t do that. That’s not how my brain works. I look at the whole picture.” The underwear-clad chef patted her dejected and slightly offended partner’s arm in an awkward gesture he didn’t understand. “You eat. I’m going to...take a bath, I think.” She squeezed his arm and then walked away. There were no tears, and the biting anger never boiled over. It wasn’t a retreat either though. The new kind of end to the fight made it different from all the other ones they’d been having since the beginning of the transfer saga. Christina didn’t get so upset that she took the easy way out just to put an end to the ordeal, and André never lost his temper or shouted at her. The former wondered if that just meant they were both becoming numb to fighting, not whether it meant they were doing better about being better to one another.

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