There was still a long time until the 2017 summer transfer window opened.
Yet the air around European football already carried the scent of parting.
Lionel Messi sat silent at the negotiating table over his Barcelona contract renewal. He had grown up here, from a boy into a man, then a father. Every blade of grass at La Masia remembered what he had looked like when he first arrived. Now, he and Barcelona were settling accounts.
Of the "Xavi-Iniesta-Busquets" midfield trio who had grown up at La Masia, Xavi had already gone far away to the Middle East, while Iniesta was about to leave for Japan's J.League.
Cristiano Ronaldo had grown increasingly quiet in Madrid, while Florentino was also doing the math: he was already in his thirties, so why was he still asking for a raise?
Neymar stood on a balcony in Barcelona, gazing toward Paris. His father had already made secret contact with the Ligue 1 giants.
Ibrahimović was about to leave. From Ajax to Juventus, from Juventus to Inter, from Inter to Barcelona, from Barcelona to Milan, from Milan to Paris... he had traveled through more places than some people visited in their entire lives.
There was nothing wrong with that.
After the Bosman Ruling, that was simply how the football world worked.
Free transfers, free markets, all reasonable and legal.
Stories about "wearing only one shirt for an entire lifetime" were becoming increasingly rare.
Maldini, Totti, Giggs... stories of such loyalty could no longer exist.
It was not that the players did not want to stay.
It was that the rules governing this transfer market did not allow it.
Every link in the entire transfer industry chain needed movement to sustain itself.
The logic of business was expansion.
One league covered one market.
In a business