Transfer deadline day in soccer is a lot of things. It's an impetus for fans across the world to become intimately acquainted with the flight patterns between Frankfurt and Milan and Newcastle.
If you're not huddled around your computer, refreshing FlightAware.com, you can take part in what some consider to be modern society's ritual welcoming of autumn: hoarding around whatever TV reporter is posted up at your favorite team's training ground, screaming into the camera, and maybe even waving some item that should've never left your bedroom.
It's also an advertisement for the absurdity of the way teams are run and players are acquired. David De Gea didn't move to Real Madrid because someone, somewhere, didn't know how to use a fax machine. Ryan Babel was in a helicopter that had to turn around, midflight, because a proposed move fell through. Peter Odemwingie literally drove to the QPR training ground to try to force a move to QPR to happen. A move to QPR did not happen.
A high-level decision-maker at a Premier League club once told me a story about how his team had to rush through a medical with someone other than their team doctor to complete a move in time on deadline day. I proposed to him that, well, this might not be the optimal way to do business. He responded by saying, well, that's just kind of how it goes.
In my mind, teams that know what they're doing are not scrambling to acquire players with only hours left to go and multiple games already in the books. Deadline day dealings are the result of poor planning and long-term mismanagement. It's the place for savvy teams to take advantage of desperate ones, a time for the smart clubs to sit back and laugh at all the chaos.
At least, that's what I thought.
