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SANDY, Utah -- Its hardly a surprise that it takes sacrifices along the way to make it to the U.S. womens national team. It requires a willingness to follow a road wherever it leads, accepting that its end might not be your desired destination.So when she found herself eye-to-eye with a sheeps severed head, Casey Short could have been forgiven for thinking she might have missed a turn or two along the way. In Norway at that moment, she was literally and figuratively a long way from her desired destination.The sheeps head was dinner; the dish a longstanding part of Norwegian cuisine.I dont know that I miss it, but it was kind of a neat experience, Short said of that culinary adventure she had while playing professionally overseas. Surprisingly, I kind of liked it.If the current moment is about where the national team goes next, it also encompasses how those who hope to answer that question got here.For the past two weeks, the national team searched for the pieces to complement the familiar and help solve puzzles posed by the 2019 World Cup and 2020 Olympics. A left foot here, poise on the ball there. With 11 players who were either entirely new to the pool or back in the fold after the briefest of cameos, the experiment marked the first wholesale roster expansion since Jill Ellis took over as coach in 2014.Without the chess pieces, Ellis wont have the team she believes she needs.Without people willing to commit years to the chase, she wouldnt have the luxury of choices.I feel like you never really feel fully prepared when youre coming in here, said first-time call-up Arin Gilliland in Utah. You always feel like you need to do something better before you get called in. So I didnt expect it, but I wanted it to happen.Standing next to her teammate, both with the NWSLs Chicago Red Stars and the national team, as Short discussed eating sheeps head, Gilliland listened with mouth agape in mock revulsion. There was far more agreement when it came to stepping on the training field for the United States, with Short vigorously voicing her consent when Gilliland found an apt metaphor.Its so high-tempo, its like the NWSL on three Starbucks coffees, Gilliland explained. But its great. It makes you think faster; it completely changes your game. And its not something you can adjust to in just one camp.It is daunting. Just not nearly as daunting as life can be.Gillilands mother, Letita, was diagnosed with cancer while her daughter was still in high school. Arin enrolled at Kentucky a semester early, in part to ensure the same mom who had helped her get ready for Halloween trick-or-treating dressed as Mia Hamm, would see her play for the Wildcats.?Letita saw those spring scrimmages and, with the same resolve thats evident in the way Arin plays soccer, saw enough games beyond that spring to witness her daughter grow into one of the best players in college soccer. She also saw a once rebellious young girl grow into the woman who would be honored, after Letita passed away in 2012, with the Honda Inspiration Award, given each year to only one female athlete across all NCAA divisions and sports.For Short, the path to the national team included not only the Scandinavian sojourn but three knee surgeries before it. A regular in the U.S. youth national team system, Short enjoyed a standout college career at Florida State and was the fifth pick in the 2013 NWSL draft. But the injuries ensured she never played a game in the league until this year, so her first professional season was spent not in the NWSL but in Avaldsnes, Norway.The culture was incredible. That was probably the best part, Short said. Everyone was so nice there. And they love football. Its everywhere. You see kids playing everywhere. So I think I was able to find a new passion for the game there and learn from everybody there. I was playing with people from all over the world. It was where I was meant to be at that time.The menu offerings might have made for the occasional comic moment, but Norway wasnt a lark. The sun sets for only a few hours a night during the Avaldsnes summer, but the twilight of Shorts career was fast approaching if she couldnt catch a break. For years, there had always been the opportunity for another game and another season. Suddenly those things were no longer givens.Almost had to put myself back together, Short, 26, explained. It was such a long journey to get there. ... I just needed to find myself again and find my confidence and get my fitness back and all these other things.Unlike the college coach she was at UCLA, Ellis isnt trying to get to know recruits and convince them to choose her program. Here the players are trying to convince her they deserve to stay. Once that is done, there might be more room to get to know the people. For now, Short isnt the product of her story; she is a rare left-footed option to play on the left side. Gilliland is a technically raw but athletically gifted prospect at outside back.Some of the newcomers left little doubt they will be back, Short is among them after a pair of starts in defensive capacities. The same goes for goalkeeper Jane Campbell, midfielder Andi Sullivan and forward Lynn Williams. Abby Dahlkemper, Ashley Hatch and Kealia Ohai played too sparingly to offer hints as to their fortunes, Ohais record-quick debut goal after 48 seconds on the field notwithstanding. Still others -- Gilliand, Danielle Colaprico, Shea Groom, Merritt Mathias -- trained throughout but didnt dress for either game.The reality is that for most of the newcomers, a contract with the national team does not await. Not at this moment. Maybe not ever. But they made it this far. And with Allie Long just the most recent example, after the 29-year-old claimed an Olympic starting spot following years in purgatory, that can be enough to keep some traveling an uncertain road.Gillilands purple-streaked hair is, in her own words, a hot mess. Shortly before an NWSL semifinal, she broke her necklace chain while engaged in some aggressive brushing. The pendant that went tumbling is an impression of her mothers thumbprint. Desperate to fix the memento before the playoff game, she said she commandeered one of the teams vans and made an emergency run to the store. It was in those minutes that her phone rang with the news from U.S. Soccer that she would be joining them in Utah.People can call it a coincidence, Gilliland said. But I kind of thought that was a sign from her telling me she was listening and knew what was going on -- and that she was happy. I got really emotional and called my dad, and we had a breakdown in the car, but it was great.The past week offered a glimpse of where the national team goes from here.It was also a reminder that here isnt anything to take for granted. Yeezy Boost 350 Deutschland . -- Vincent Lecavalier got everything but the desired result in his return to Tampa Bay. Nmd Schuhe Großhandel . -- If this was Aaron Gordons final home game at Arizona, and it almost certainly was, then he went out in style. http://www.yeezyschuhe.de/ . Denis Coderre, the former federal MP who was elected mayor on Nov. 3, has drawn the ire of some Montreal Canadiens. During last nights game he tweeted: "Hello? Can we get a one-way ticket to (minor-league) Hamilton for David Desharnais please. Yeezy Schuhe Bestellen . With the first unit struggling of late and Amir Johnson - one of the teams iron men - hobbling on an injured right ankle, Patterson knew he could get the nod in a challenging matchup against one of the leagues up and coming players at his position. Yeezy Schuhe Kaufen Deutschland . -- Damian Lillard and LaMarcus Alrdridge were again the go-to duo for the Trail Blazers against the Kings. PARIS -- Sunday morning, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo and French President Francois Hollande retraced the path of the terrorists who attacked the city. At each of their six stops, they tugged a French flag away from the face of a marble plaque engraved with the names of the dead. The names were read aloud. In front of the Bataclan concert hall, where 90 people were murdered, the recitation took more than four minutes.When the streets in front of the Bataclan opened up again around midday, people were ready with candles and bouquets wrapped in cellophane. For close to an hour, they squeezed, one at a time, through a narrow opening in a barricaded area flanked by police and ringed by photographers and cameramen. Every gesture was documented several times over. Paris conducted its wake in a fishbowl -- the price it pays for being Paris.On Sunday afternoon, balloons floated upward from the town hall of the 11th arrondissement, the hardest-hit part of the city. Illuminated paper lanterns floated down the Canal Saint-Martin at dusk, accumulating along one bank, where the current pushed them. In the early evening at Le Barometre, a restaurant a couple of blocks from the Bataclan where panicked people took refuge the night of the shootings, owner Veronique Tafanel handed singer Cathy Gourier a message she had written to her customers. Thank you for your presence today, Gourier began.By 9 p.m. Sunday, it was 48 degrees, raw and misting at a nearby three-way intersection a year to the hour after two cafes there were raked with automatic gunfire. Most of the sidewalk tables were full under the diffuse glow of heat lamps.The curlicue writing on the chalkboard at La Bonne Biere advertised grilled flank steak avec frites et salade for 14.90 euros.People ate facing the street, as usual.This week, delegations from the three would-be hosts of the 2024 Summer Games -- Budapest, Los Angeles and Paris -- will present their cases to the General Assembly of the Association of National Olympic Committees in Doha, Qatar. Hidalgo will be there, transitioning from Sundays somber ceremonial duty to her own outward-facing lobbying effort for the city. The International Olympic Committee will make its selection in September 2017.Three previous Paris bid campaigns have been checkmated in the past 20 years. If this one succeeds, Paris would host on the centennial of the 1924 Games, an event elevated to myth through the portrayal of running rivals Eric Liddell and Harold Abrahams in Chariots of Fire.Sentiment is a flimsy asset, as Greece, birthplace of the modern Olympics, found out when it lost the 1996 Games to Atlanta. Were perfectly conscious that its not enough, said Etienne Thobois, the CEO of the Paris 2024 bid committee. Were turned toward the future, not 1924. And its also a date that reminds us of how long weve waited.Its striking to see Paris ardent pursuit of the Summer Olympics, inviting the world in while its still in the recovery process, and how little internal resistance its bid has encountered. Financial overruns, human rights concerns, corruption and doping scandals have eroded the image of the Olympic industry and diminished the appeal for host cities. In this bid cycle alone, Bostons candidacy fizzled, Hamburgs citizens rebelled via referendum and Rome dropped out.Three terrorist attacks -- two in Paris and one in Nice -- in less than two years have dented tourism and prompted the government to extend the state of emergency status that grants sweeping powers to law enforcement. Authorities struggling to manage teeming migrant/refugee camps in Paris and the northern port of Calais took a hard line in recent weeks and cleared them out.Despite those obvious stresses, Paris 2024 opposition has been muted and scarce. Support has largely crossed party lines so far, with a presidential election looming next spring. Thobois and other bid leaders are pitching Paris plans as logical and efficient, an incentive to accelerate, rather than create, housing and transit development in the near suburbs that is already on the drawing board.We dont think theres a lot of risk in our particular case, said Thobois, a former Olympic badminton player.On a more symbolic level, the bid represents the resolve to finish something conceived before last years siege, at the very place where the Paris 2024 Games would open and close.The terrorists who launched multiple attacks in Paris on Nov. 13, 2015, intended the Stade de France, where Frances mens soccer team was facing Germany in a friendly match, to be a slaughterhouse. After the plan was thwarted by a vigilant security guard and an observant ticket-taker, three suicide bombers blew themselves up outside the walls of the stadium in the northern suburb of Saint-Denis, killing one and injuring 56.France has played several times in the 80,000-seat stadium since then, including last summers loss to Portugal in the Euro 16 final. Fridays World Cup qualifier against Sweden didnt have nearly as much competitive meaning, but its positioning on this particular weekend gave it weight, and it sold out.It was still a soccer match, not a memorial service, and the crowd packing the RER B line platform at the Gare du Nord station surged impatiently toward the doors when the train stopped. The forward momentum lifted one woman off her feet, propelling her into the car and downward into the floor on one knee. A man helped her up and apologized for the mob mentality, then cracked a beer in a paper bag.As the train sped toward Saint-Denis, there was a sharp but indistinct sound -- maybe glass breaking, maybe metal catching, maybe someone stepping on a crackly plastic bottle. People instinctively whipped their heads around. A low, mocking adolescent voice shouted, On va tous mourir! (Were all going to die!)The fans got off the train at the stadium and did what fans do at sporting events every day, consciously or not: They bet it wouldnt happen that night. They bet on the people who would peer into their purses and pat their ribcages. They bet on percentages.In the stands, Dehbia Yata, a 38-yeaar-old telecommunications engineer, said, I dont come often, but I came tonight to say, We are here, we are standing and we have to go on.ddddddddddddShe and most people hushed voluntarily after joining in a full-throated version of La Marseillaise. Distant, ambient noise drifted into the vacuum of the official moment of silence, something vaguely percussive, like a brush on a snare drum. It took a few seconds to realize it was traffic coursing by on the nearby A1 and A86 highways. People usually pass through this place, headed somewhere else.One of the most ambitious aspects of the 2024 bid is to change that dynamic. A new Olympic-size pool -- the only major competition facility Paris lacks -- the athletes village, media housing and several temporary venues are slated for construction in Saint-Denis.We arent building any white elephants that will be on the autoroute exit and wont be used once the games are done, said Stephane Troussel, president of the Seine-Saint-Denis council, whose department, or subregion, includes the city.Troussel, 46, grew up nearby and vibrates with enthusiasm about the bids potential to ramp up the quality of life in this industrial, polyglot area that is the youngest and one of the poorest in the country.The city is also irrevocably associated with the terrorist attacks. The leader and two other members of the group responsible for planning the spree died in a massive police raid five days later in the heart of the downtown area.A huge swath of playing fields and parkland earmarked for Paris 2024 use is a 10-minute bus ride away. On one clear, chilly day there last week, a group of young French-Pakistani men played cricket, French-Senegalese soccer players scrimmaged and a woman wearing a Muslim headscarf kicked a ball back and forth with her son.A group of young French kids of various colors walking toward the basketball court stopped to talk. Moussa, 14, said he hoped the Olympics would come to his hometown.I think there will be a lot of tourists, the economy will grow, maybe, and people wont be afraid of Saint-Denis anymore and their stereotypes that we all deal drugs or that there will be attacks all the time, he said.Sting reopened the Bataclan on Saturday night in a show that sold out in minutes. In the coming weeks, the club has scheduled African icon Youssou NDour, British legend Marianne Faithfull, and Israeli-French singer Yael Naim, who did one of her first gigs at the Bataclan.Naim and two other French female vocalists sang Jacques Brels Quand on na que lamour (When love is all we have) at last years national ceremony of mourning, to dignitaries and family members seated in the vast, echoing stone courtyard of the Invalides military museum complex.Im ready to welcome any emotions that will come, Naim said in a phone interview of her upcoming Bataclan show with partner David Donatien. I think it will be a mix of different emotions, and that will be fine.It became very precious to be able to continue to celebrate life this way, to go out and make music and share strong emotions together. People continued to come and fill the concerts, and that was a statement.The attacks altered the consciousness of Paris performers and audiences alike. Soul-funk band Urban Groove Unit canceled a date scheduled for the next night out of respect. But drummer David Lamy, who plays with several different bands, played his next gig at Paris famous Olympia concert hall and had to fight the unpleasant, selfish thought that he might need to protect himself.It wasnt in my head the whole concert, just two or three moments, Lamy said after Urban Groove Unit played the cozy LEntrepot club in the 14th arrondissement last week. He said the nerves passed quickly.Sophie, a 40-year-old working single mother, does not want her real first name used. Her former live-in partner was among the Bataclan victims. For days afterward, she compulsively watched footage of people fleeing the club, stopping when she realized she was still hoping to see him emerge.Im not one of those people who said, Lets go, Im not afraid, Sophie says as her cup of green tea with bergamot steeps in a café near Montmartre. I didnt have that reflex. Ill be very honest. I was afraid.Sustained fear gave way to anxiety that lurked and pounced more randomly. Waiting in line on the street outside a nightclub as security searched patrons one by one, Sophie felt a flash of anger: She felt more exposed, not less. She melted down in tears at the first big concert she attended at the Zenith hall, thinking, Im doing what he was doing.She doesnt believe an event like the Olympics would make Paris more of a target. Terrorists are more likely to hit people going about their daily routines, she said, because that has a greater impact. But if I had a vote, I would vote no, she added. Sports has become a huge industry, and Im not inclined to contribute to it.Veronique Tafanel feels differently. Itll help us to move on, she said.Within an hour of the attacks at the Bataclan, police arrived at the door of Le Barometre and told her they needed the space cleared to use as a command post. Tafanel ushered the traumatized people who had taken shelter in the restaurant up a back staircase to her apartment and told them they could stay as long as they needed to. Some didnt leave until dawn. Tafanel went downstairs and started cleaning.She lost 20 percent of her business while the Bataclan was shut down, but that isnt her chief concern. Tafanel has enough on her hands simply trying to be present instead of dwelling on the near inevitability that evil will reload.Sunday night, she stood quietly as Gourier, who performs regularly at Le Barometre, read her words to the 30 or so people eating and drinking as they listened: We have the audacity to smile. We have the audacity to laugh. This is our response.Gourier resumed her set, beckoning through the glass at people outside. Come in! she said. Its great in here! ' ' '