The most frenetic 24 hours in football

Today is a bad day to work at a football club. Or in LaLiga, that kind of panopticon from which everyone’s accounts are controlled. It’s also a bad day to be a sports journalist, it’s all too easy to end up a laughing stock. Today is the last day of the market, the day when everything which has been put off for weeks suddenly accelerates in a chain of contracts linked to each other. The coaches spend the whole day with their fingers crossed, some like Xavi, hoping that some pending reinforcement will drop; others, like El Cholo, the other way around, fearing that some important piece will be taken from them at the last minute for financial fairplay.

Why so late, why do we have to leave it for the last day? Why is this done with the national leagues already underway, why not a month before and thus start them with the squads complete? To the latter, the answer is that UEFA sets this date because in August there are qualifying matches for the European cup competitions and the budget of many clubs can vary depending on whether or not they reach this or that competition. And to the first, the answer is that everyone hopes that the needs of the seller or the buyer will force them to lower their pretensions. And also that players willing to move will agree to moderate their salary.

A day of frenetic activity, with operations hooked like cherries in an international basket of offers and counteroffers. In a question of hours you have to conclude operations that have been in the making for weeks or suddenly improvise to close a hole that opens. A multitude of names on the table, from Cristiano, who is still looking for a Champions League destination, to the less relevant ones, going through Aubameyang, whose unfortunate incident complicates his operation, or the melancholy Asensio and Raúl de Tomás, in search of of a place where they can shine in the three imminent months with the hope that Luis Enrique will take them to Qatar. A fun frenzy… to experience it from the outside.