From Navas to Umtiti. The big clubs overpaid the players, they buy so many they don’t know what to do with them. And they pay you to play somewhere else
Db Barcelona (Spain) 04/04/2018 – Champions League / Barcelona-Rome / Photo Daniele Buffa / Image Sport In the photo: Samuel Umtiti
Naucrates ductor. It is the scientific name for pilot fish. These little animals that are symbiotic travel companions of sharks. They rush to meet him, to use Roman jargon. They feed on food debris left between their teeth, parasites, food debris, and even shark feces. They offer what is called a cleaning service.
That happens on this transfer market, and not only on this one. The phenomenon has been spreading lately. The Super League is indeed a reality and the economic and financial differences between the clubs are increasing every year. Without wishing to engage in a Marxist analysis, we say nothing shocking when we emphasize that football is a striking example of the distortions of capitalism, also because it develops in complete disorder. Football is not like the NBA. There are no rules. Except for the invention of financial fair play, a very boring tool used at times according to political expediency. Of
You are not sitting at the table with the same chips. And so the big fish has to eat the small fish. Even the Champions League is now a competition that, with a few exceptions, is boring right up to the quarter-finals. There are six or seven clubs that dominate and the rest of the teams more or less gracefully play the role of extras. They enter a competition because they know they can’t be competitive.
The point is that the greed of the richest clubs often goes hand in hand with management incompetence and ends up causing severe heartburn. This is where pilot fish come into play. Which begin to spin in the jaws of giants in search of residue of interest. With this method, Napoli took home Ndombele and probably Keylor Navas. Last year Anguissa. If the rumors are confirmed, the Pilot Fish Oscar would go to Lecce’s Pantaleo Corvino, who are trying to bring French centre-back Umtiti to Salento, who has been at Barcelona for six seasons.
Soccer sharks are voracious, they will eat anything and spare no expense. Often they do so without following any political line, changing direction according to the wishes of the coaches who follow one another on the bench. And they end up accumulating human material for three teams. But since there are always eleven players, at some point they can no longer keep up. Especially after two years of Covid. They have too many players being paid in gold and monstrous salaries and they don’t know what to do with them. So, to save even a few million bucks, lend them and keep paying them a big chunk of salary. To let them play somewhere else: in the Naucrates Ductor teams.
The smartest footballers have managed to sail to America where they have won important signings. Among those in the top spots for realism is Lorenzo Insigne, who, as Professor of Vesuviano in Tornatore’s film, has shown “orientation” to put it. Probably well advised, Insigne saw the recession in European football before many others and signed a superstar contract in Toronto. Where Bernardeschi (never seen so happy) and Criscito followed him. Next to Chiellini. Without forgetting Bale and people like Higuain who have been playing there for a while. And many others will come.
Meanwhile, players less concerned with understanding the economic changes in the football system are stuck. As long as they have a contract, they have a guaranteed salary. And when they are removed from the parent company, they find refuge in branches. But then the time will come to deal with reality. As happened in Dybala this summer. Life without parameters is no longer what Mino Raiola imagined.
Football is a system that, without rules, finds little corrective action. Only those who have less money complain: It is the law of life. Anyone who criticizes the Casemiro operation (85 million plus 25 gross salary per season) today praised Juventus’ purchase of Ronaldo three years ago. There is no serious desire to make football a fairer sport where more clubs have a chance of winning. Little is about to change that, as Barcelona have shown this summer, who continue to dance on the brink of bankruptcy yet complete a screaming transfer campaign. And while that’s the case, the prowess of second- and third-tier clubs will be measured by their ability to brush between the teeth of sharks.