The Drama of Deadline Day

Published: 31^st Jan 12 7:14 pm

by Alan Dymock
Alan Dymock

RANT It!

“Roll up! Roll up! Leave your inhibitions at the door! Partake in the frenzy! Roll up!”

The TV is on but it may as well be white noise. The voices –the endless, chattering voices –keep repeating the same diktats about necessity in a bustling market, but it is lost on the average fan. They don’t care about the true cost of purchase or what loss of personnel means to the balance of a changing room or the influence on training schedules. No. They care about the luminescent strip at the bottom of their screen flashing proclamations about which player is snubbing which major club. Show us more pictures!

It is Transfer Deadline Day in Europe and the sports stations have lost their thread.

Everyone is shouting because that is what you do. Everyone is signaling for cutaway pieces showing airport terminals and players on treadmills behind graying men in lab coats because saying the words ‘transfer’ and ‘medical’ just isn’t enough. Everyone is tweeting about how much they wish their club would sign that big name goalscorer.

The great act is played out. A charade where everyone fools themselves into thinking that an entire season can be turned around by one huge signing. Suddenly a superstar will restructure and redefine a club, knocking in goals, shoring up defenses or pulling off strings of gorgeous saves.

Everyone wants a Messiah.

Miracles, though, however real they are, cost money. The word deadline ensures this. Soccer’s almost pagan economics is such that if demand is through the roof and the market is due to close you can squeeze those last few pennies out of the wealthy suitor. Take them to the cleaners. Swap a centre-back with groin problems you never made public for a sack of cash large enough to buy a youngster and an experienced winger? “Tell that team what they’ve won!”

Drama. We crave it. We seek it out. We sit in front of the tube, baying for news and basking in the shouts and flashes. Of course it is never enough. That player just isn’t as magnificent as you would have hoped and your manager, sacrosanct before the chairman tightened the purse strings, is now left looking bereft of ambition. Have your team shown their glaring deficiencies in the aspiration department, as well as in the left-back position? Oh No! The manager is toothless on deadline day. Get him out! Drama!

Of course all the while, as Deadline Day strobes away in the background like a night on the tiles with a giddy agent, the prudent managers like the Wengers, Fergusons and Guardiolas sit back and laugh. They will not be held ransom. They will not sacrifice the grand plan for an obsequious lunge at some shiny new soccer star-to-be. They will not watch the TV. They won’t even answer the phone.

The players secure with themselves and their positions also turn off their phones. They are not the type to seek out action. Like a punter they will watch the box because, like most others, they enjoy the Deadline pantomime but they won’t actively take part in it. They’ll watch from the sidelines for a change.

The last hour approaches. The panic starts. Incredulous negotiations break down. Someone thinks they have pulled off a coup. Another gets that guilt that every shopper experiences when they know they have bought something they really didn’t need. People make preparations for a big move. Management pencil in Wednesday morning press conferences.

The TV shudders and programming slips into a commercial break. The kettle is put on and sighs are audible from around the continent. The curtain slowly draws.

Rumors will continue through the night, but everything official will come out tomorrow. Gaffes can be explained once everyone has had some rest. It will also be shown that spending, across the board, has fallen. Out of the zeitgeist people will be forced to acknowledge the global economic downturn. Even soccer must accept that the halcyon days of mega-transfers are only available to the select few are over and that although the nouveau riche like Anzhi Makhachkala and Paris St. Germain may snap up players for exorbitant fees few else are willing to do this. Tactics have to win the day because who honestly has the money these days?

Only six months ‘til the circus is back in town…

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