Post by bdc on Apr 22, 2010 8:29:24 GMT -5
Summary (Work in progress)
(Sorry I don't speak English very well)
Manuel Riveiro (aka El Flaco) and Gonzalo Roldan (aka Lalo) are 2 Argentine football players. They play in the same team, el deportivo cristal, based in Bueons Aires.
Manuel is a famous jugador coming back to his old team, where he grew up as a player, after spending several years playing in Europe (Spain/Italy) at high levels and he'd like to end his career in Argentina.
He's married with Lili and they have 2 children. They live at the moment in Tato's house, because their house is restructuring and not yet ready.Tato is a football manager, an absolute rogue, an unscrupulous person. The most part of deportivo cristal's players are under contract with him, included Manuel and Lalo. In the locker room there are already rumours circulating about El Flaco and his sexuality. One in particularly ... he likes his teammate Lalo too much.
Actually Manuel lives a double life. He's gay and in the past he had sex with other men, but he never fell in love with a man before meeting Lalo.
Lalo is one of the newest memeber of the team. He's Cristian Flores's cousin. Cristian, aka Chiqui, is one of the most famous players in Argentina (and the main character of this telenovela). Lalo comes from a little town, he's young, a bit rebel, impulsive and a promising jugador . Playing for Deportivo Cristal is Lalo's greatest chance to have success above all now that el Chiqui has been disqualified leaving vacant his position in the main team (they play in the same position). He lives in Tato's house too, because Tato wanted to take him under control. Lalo had a girlfriend, Candy. Candy lately is not on screen, she has been raped by Mostaza, the leader of deportivo cristal's supporters, but sooner she'll be back. Btw I think Candy and Lalo split while she was recovering at the hospital.
Lalo was suspected of Giselle's murdering. She managed an agency who developed mediatic romances amongs beautiful women and football players. In Spanish, a "botinera" is literally a woman that wears a "botín", a term that can denote both some High-heeled footwear or a Football boot; in everyday usage it is also a new term to denote a footballer's girlfriend or wife.
Lalo was one of the 3 suspects of her death by detective Salgado, because once he threatened Giselle to kill her. Lalo was angry with her because she tried to convince Candy to work for her as a botinera and Lalo didn't want it.
We still don't know who killed Giselle (Mirta accused herself of her death, but probably because she wanted to protect Tato, accused by Salgado for the murdering) but Lalo is hiding something as well....
He accidentally killed another botinera, Vanina, while leaving from Anguila Muñiz's (another player) home after a party. Vanina was run over by Anguila's car driven by a drunken Lalo.
Only few persons knew the truth about Vanina's death:
Lalo,Manuel, his cousin "Chiqui" , Nino Paredes (they guy with the pigtail, lawyer, assassin, a very bad guy), Tato, Anguila Muñiz and another botinera Mia Alberdi. Mia is not her real name. She's an undercovered cop, Laura Posse. She became a botinera trying to investigate about another murder involving el Chiqui. Anguila Muñiz confessed to "Chiqui" that his cusin Lalo killed Vanina. That night, both scared Lalo and Anguila called Tato and Nino asking them for help. But pressed by Chiqui, Anguila said that was Mia to resolve the problem with the police cleaning the scene, hiding first and then moving the body and finding a doctor to draw up a fake relation about the causes of Vanina's death. Tato took undue advantage of this situation blackmaling Lalo's mum into singning the contract for his son with him, hiding the truth and saving Lalo's career. Mia/Laura helped Tato in this occasion because she wanted to win his trust to investigate about the murdering of Andrés Cappa, killed by Nino. Chiqui was accused of this murdering, as Andrés was his greatest rival and they had a a furious quarrel during a match, strong words flew, as a matter of fact Chiqui was disqualified by the sports judge. Few hours later Andrés was found dead. For the record, Laura has a sentimental relationship with Salgado, but before she had an affair with Christian. It seems quite clear that they are still romantically involved. Unfortunately for him, El Chiqui's married with Marga, who is now pregnant. Christian doesn't know that the baby is not his, in fact Nino is the father, but Marga doesnt' want to lose all the benifts she has being Christian's wife: money, fame.
Manuel and Lalo's relationship started one day while they were in the locker room. Lalo was crying, under stress for the news of Giselle's death, fearing of being accused of the murdering due to his threats of killing her and he had a nervous breakdown in front of Manuel. El Flaco tried to comfort him, to reassure him that if he was innocent he won't have any problem with the police. Professing his faith in Lalo, Manuel kissed him on his lips. After the kiss they both panicked, a frightened Lalo ran away leaving Manuel in despair, scared as he had never been in his life before, while Chiqui was coming in.
During the next days Manuel tried, in vain, to explain Lalo , begging for his forgiveness but he always refused to listen, saying that he had a girfriend and that he didn't want to talk about what happened between them.
Manuel's strange behaviour in the presence of Lalo aroused Lili's suspicions. One night Manuel came into Lalo's room apologizing again for the kiss, this time Lalo was more compliant and they made up, not knowing that someone was spying them.
Meanwhile rumours about Manuel and Lalo were circulating in and out the locker room thanks to Chiqui and Anguila, Salgado ordered to his men to take Lalo to the police station for officially questioning him about Giselle's death.
Running away was the only thing Lalo was able to do after having found two officers waiting for him outside the sports center. He took shelter in Chiqui's house. Cristian persuaded his cousin to consult his lawyer and to go to the police. Lalo at the beginning followed his advice, but then rejected Cristian's lawyer, asking Nino to take his place (I think that Tato and Nino forced him to chose Nino as his lawyer otherwise they will end up telling Salgado Lalo's role in Vanina's death, they were more interested to take Giselle's death investigations under control).
Once clarified his position with Salgado, Lalo came back to Tato's house. Worried for Lalo, Manuel knocked to his room that night. For the second time in few days Manuel comforted his friend and again they ended up kissing.
Before leaving for an away match Lili asked to his husband to bring her a present. Once at the hotel, by pure chance Lalo and Manuel ended up in the same bedroom. That night nothing happened between them, but Lalo had an erotic dream about him and Manuel making love, a dream that upset him.
When Lili found out, once Manuel came back, that the necklace with a "L" shaped pendent he brought and hid under their bed wasn't for her, began to understand what was going on between el flaco and Lalo.
Lalito was surprised but happy to receive that unexpected gift, a good luck pendent from Manuel. They hugged after Lalo promised him to protect their "friendship" from the others , in primis from Lili and Tato. So he hid the necklace and a camera with some pictures of them, in a drawer. For the first time Manuel said the 3 magic words to Lalo..."yo te quiero" - "I love you"....kid!
Searching for confirmations of her suspicions, Lili slipped in Lalo's room and found out the green box with the necklace bought by Manuel, in one of the drawers. She was getting over the shock when Lalo came in asking why she was there, Lili invented a lie to justify her presence there, one of Manuel's shirts was missing and she thought it was there by mistake, then got out leaving a doubtful Lalo on his own.
Annoyed about all the things happened and worried to have more crap to clean, Tato wanted an explanation by Manuel. He was too much an acute observer to not read the signs. Knowing about Manuel's tendencies, he realized there was something going on between El Flaco and Lalo, also confirmed by Lili's strange behaviour. Recently she complained with him about their extended accomodation in his house, she'd like to live in her own house with her family. Besides, even if she was a beautiful woman to his eyes, lately she was always asking for reassurance about her look, both evident signs of a crisis in Lili and Manuel's marriage.
That night while Manuel was hugging Lili after having sex with her, in a different bed, in a different place, more private than Tato's house, he recalled what his manager said him that afternoon. Tato knew about his affair with Lalo, his attemps to deny their relationship were useless, Tato didn't care about what Manuel did in his private life, for him, Manuel could fuck a guy if he'd like to do it...but being one of his players, maybe one of the most precious with el Chiqui, he warned him to be more careful. Lili wasn't a fool, she noticed her husband's special affection for Lalo, everybody noticed it.
Tato was right, the word gay didn't exist in the football's world. There were no gay reporters, no gay managers and absolutely no gay players. Football is a hypocrite world, but it's Manuel's world. His career is going to quit in advance if Lili will reveal that her famous husband was fucking one of his teammates. Game over and of course he couldn't let her do it. That's why that night Manuel invited Lili to a secret randez-vous. He needed to convince her that everything was fine, that he loved her and their family more than everyone else. Once there Lili admitted that lately she felt alone and anxious, she knew there was something going wrong between them, they weren't anymore happy together.
