Player

A shocking news appears on the morning paper: The football club Real Madrid (皇家馬德里) announce the signing of Yao Ming (姚明); the great Chinese basketball player would start a new profession.

But, hold on. Isn't Yao having a navicular fracture and couldn't even walk ? In fact, there seems a good possibility that the Chinese giant would not be able to run even if he recovers from the injury. Well, I find the following interview of Florentino Perez, the Real president, in the paper:

"That's not a problem," replied Perez. "We would modify our system of entrance physical examination so that Yao could complete - and pass - even if he sits on a wheelchair."

"If he couldn't walk, how could he join the game ?" A naive journalist asked.

"We may modify certain rules of the game," the president was absolutely confident. "In fact we do not really expect Yao to join any football match - he will just sit there and appear to be playing."

"Like McManaman ? But if Yao cannot run, he couldn't even join the morning training !"

"You shut up," Perez had reached his limits, "or I would file a complaint to the Equal Opportunity Council for your discrimination against disabled players."

PS. For those who are not familiar with football, Steve MaManaman used to be a player in Real Madrid - but he hardly ever appeared in the real match. His main duty, as we could observe, was to accompany Zinedine Zidane for training. MaManaman wasn't even the replacement of Zidane - there was a player called Santiago Solari who took the role of Zidane when the latter was not fit for a match.

Author's declaration:
This story is purely imaginary. There is no hidden meaning that an audience should try to extrapolate - or you must have read too much Kafka.