I guess it's real..Although I had a day to digest this news. I don't like change much when it comes to certain things.. like Rafa.. Only time will tell if Rafa is really taking this serious or is it just a PR move to get the team more publicity. And from this interview with Uncle Toni seems like Rafa is making decisions on his own without the approval of Uncle Toni..

via Sebastian Fest (dpa) | Madrid
Updated Monday 10/10/2011 16:00



Rafael Nadal has a ball between the eyes, a much larger ball than the one that hit tens of thousands of times per year. Nadal dreams of becoming a football forever, but his love affair with the ball will have to wait even years to materialize, if it does. The tennis world number two suffered a lot when, at age 12, was forced to make a decision: either tennis or football. No one would dare question the fact that the racket was right to choose. With ten Grand Slam titles and more than one hundred weeks as world number one, Nadal is one of the most successful players of all time.
But football never leaves your mind. He said it loud and clear at one-thirty in the morning of September 14, 2010 during an interview with dpa after winning the U.S. Open and accomplish the feat of being champion of the four Grand Slam tournaments.
 "Football has always been my thing. A thorn that has stayed with me always stuck I could not play more football, I have an incredible passion for football." So the news that Inter Manacor, a team from the regional third division of Mallorca, signed up for Nadal this season, popped the question among many: the Spanish shall allocate its efforts between tennis and football?
In all, assured his uncle and coach Toni Nadal. "What we are clear about the two: not very well come to play soccer," Toni Nadal said today during a telephone conversation with dpa in which he defined as "symbolic" the inscription of his nephew as an Inter player Manacor. "It is symbolic, it is a group of his friends who have made a team, and he is enrolled." Mallorca media reported that the nephew of former international Miguel Angel Nadal "joined Inter Manacor" and play "as long as his commitments allow."
 
The Spanish foreign sports team, but at 25 years old is at the zenith of his career and in a struggle to regain the world number one, making it unlikely to risk injury playing football. "I do not think it's hard to play football," he said Toni Nadal. 
"If there's a preseason game, they tell you whether to play half-time and do it gently and without force ... It is possible, and you may not. It is normal not to play." "Furthermore, the problems he has in the foot ...", said the coach, referring to the player's injury in his left foot, which Nadal himself defines as its" Achilles heel ".
 
In his childhood and early adolescence Nadal was known as a fearsome striker capable of scoring 50 goals per season. Inter Manacor, who dreams of seeing him return to play in official matches, and he retained the jersey number "9". His uncle recalled some football matches and Nadal played as a professional tennis player, although both are back to the early years of his career, when he still was not the megastar he is.
"In 2004, in the Davis Cup semifinals in Alicante, we play a football game before. And in 2005, Bastad, Rafael was the one who is said to play beach football, which is much worse for the physical ".
Toni Nadal Is it contrary to his nephew plays for Inter Manacor? "I do not recommend it, but I'm not going to stop them. Let him do what he wants, is 25 years." Maybe just try to wait few more years. Nadal with his family controls ten percent of the shares of Mallorca, the Spanish first division, but recently retired from its board, unhappy with the club's decision to dispense with coach Michael Laudrup.
After retirement, Nadal told DPA during the interview in 2010, the tennis player could leave the way to Mallorca. "I think in the future if they need a striker at some point, I'm there."