The silence in the signings

There was a time, don't believe that it was so long ago, I would say no more than 10 years, that someone I know said at a press conference, perhaps in an interview in a box, one of those phrases, one of those sentences , which tend to be liked by those who say it and more by those who manage the communication of a club: "Negotiations are not broadcast".

Surely this concept, this idea, agrees with what most of you think should be a basic rule of any negotiation.

Perhaps you, as the author of the pretentious sentence, think that these things of the negotiations are carried out in secret, in silence, in the whispers of a meeting room, a discreet cafe, an airport lounge, in which the Interlocutors, like actors in a spy movie, meet, talk, discuss and leave written figures on a simple piece of paper that tomorrow, yesterday's tomorrow, will be part of football history.

Or an absurd and miserable napkin, if all that ends more than badly, it ends in disaster.

There was a time when the question was to overcome the difficulties of those who wanted to know, inform, explain, always in the first place, what was being discussed in the privacy of the offices, in the intimacy of the conversations, away from the spotlight and the public statements because it was understood that what came out, leaked, was known, was a weapon that the rival in the negotiation (disappoint because there is always a rival who is going to benefit from our evil, be it a player, a coach or the price of gasoline ) was going to take advantage of that information to squeeze us, ask us for more.

Nor am I going to deny that in those days we also used that information that favored us to plant ourselves in our positions, to say that we did not move from our proposal because our "spies" told us that the other party was in great need of closing an agreement of quickly and cleanly.

There was a time, I'm telling you not so long ago and you don't have to change the century to find it, when the main thing was how a long, uncertain, even improbable negotiation ended, but it started from the beginning that if it came out, if it ended well, if it was finished off and it was a goal, it was one of those that one could say at the presentation press conference that it was going to be one of the main chapters of his book of unspeakable memories.

That book that you now know you will never write.

There was a time when what mattered was that the negotiation came to a successful conclusion because that was the objective that had been set as the main objective for the club, for the team and its competitive capabilities and all personal issues were second, perhaps until third term, because it was considered that the essential thing was to create a competitive project, an efficient team capable of overcoming the deserts that always appear in any season.

There was a time, perhaps it was only yesterday, when what was essential was collective achievement, global happiness, the satisfaction of happy fans, because their team, without names or authors, only their colors and global happiness, had reached that point where joy builds memories, stories and legends.

There was a time when what was called sports management consisted of imagining what competitive advantages you could build for your club, an obvious one is the market, but those millimeters of improvement also inhabited medicine, rehabilitation, nutrition, the quality of grass, the recording of your rivals' training sessions and matches, psychology, the podiatrist, the management of the data that we began to generate and how we stored it in that cloud that sounded like science fiction and how we then worked with it and how , by generating and saving them, they could facilitate the task of those who came after us.

But sports law and its loopholes were also sought, the continuous training of coaches, training tasks, in those days we still did not dare to talk about methodology,

from the best-tuned trips to buy time and reduce fatigue or what our team should eat after the game and how that could influence the interior design of the bus for the next season.

Many millimeters that, in the end, would give us a meter advantage.

There was a time, yesterday, just yesterday, perhaps a time before the algorithm, when what mattered was being professional, efficient, discreet, making decisions with the best elements and being able, above all, to manage your silences.

Of the noises, then and, perhaps, until now, they were in charge of the outside.

Never, never, never, the insiders.

Because that's the hardest noise to control.

Always.

You can follow EL PAÍS Deportes on

50% off

Exclusive content for subscribers

read without limits

subscribe

I'm already a subscriber