American Singer And Mom-Of-6, Madonna Took This Bold Step Because Of Her Son, David

”My son, who is going to be 13 on September 24, has wanted to play soccer professionally for years. I’ve been desperate to get him into the best academies with the best coaches, but the level of football in America is much lower than the rest of the world.

I saw his frustration, and I also felt it was a good time,” she said.

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”Any woman who is a soccer mom could say it kind of requires you to have no life in a way, because things change from week to week and games change from weekend to weekend.

Sometimes they’re in the city, sometimes they’re not, and we would never know until Thursday night whether they’re on Saturday or Sunday, if at twelve o’clock or later,” Madonna told the European glossy about her son’s ever-changing schedule.

She added: “It’s impossible to make plans, and then you feel like you’re not being fair to your other kids, or being fair to me!”

Talking about her decision to move to Lisbon, the songstress and businesswoman who posed for a series of shots for photographer Mert & Marcus said:

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”It was actually between three different cities that had soccer academies. And I thought, let me see if I could live somewhere else for a year and put my four youngest kids in a different environment, as I think it’s also important to expose them to different cultures and living in different places.

So, it was between Turin, Barcelona, and Benfica in Lisbon. I went to all those places and tried to imagine myself living there. Of course, Barcelona is a super fun city, and I like Turin as well, but Turin is not really a city for children.

It’s a city for intellectuals; they have incredible museums and beautiful homes, but I didn’t think it would be fun for them. I have to take everyone into account, not just whether it will be a good academy for David.

So I went to Lisbon, and it seemed the best all-around choice. (…) [Portugal is] steeped in history, and the Portuguese empire has made its dent on the world.

The architecture is amazing. It’s also the birthplace of slavery, and so there are musical influences which come from Angola and Cape Verde, and also from Spain.

And then on top of all of that, one of my favourite things to do in the whole world is to ride horses. I live in Lisbon, in Lapa, but when I go horse-riding I go to Comporta, I go to friend’s houses, I go to Alcácer.

I always say three f’s rule Portugal: fado, football and Fatima. It’s also a very Catholic country, which suits me just fine.”

Madonna’s 21-year-old adult daughter, Lourdes Leon (with ex Carlos Leon) and 17-year-old son, Rocco Ritchie (with ex Guy Ritchie) don’t currently live with their mom; but the Grammy winner says her younger kids — David and Mercy James, both 12, and 5-year-old twins Estere and Stella — have all settled into life in Portugal, after foregoing three other cities with soccer academies.

“What’s amazing is how resilient they are and how they embraced all things, especially music, dance, soccer and sports — things that connect them to other people makes adaptation easier,” she said.

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“They learned to speak Portuguese through doing all those things with people, not by sitting in a classroom and learning in a didactic way, like writing on a chalkboard. Instead, it’s fun, it’s interactive.”

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