The Daily Bee: The Great Transfer Deadline Frenzy

Good morning, everyone.

The transfer window is over, which is a bit of a two-sided coin. On one hand, I don’t have to write about wildly untrue transfer rumors that will never come to fruition. On the other hand, a few of these wildly untrue transfer rumors that were never going to come to fruition would have actually helped out Borussia Dortmund. The idea of BVB signing Callum Hudson-Odoi on loan had me legitimately excited. Unfortunately, it seems that the young winger’s wages were simply too high for Dortmund, and that they couldn’t offload any deadweight contracts like Nico Schulz or Roman Burki to be able to bring on his wage bill.

While BVB’s transfer deadline may have been a tad disappointing, at the very least we can all clasp hands agree: at least we’re not FC Barcelona. One of many reasons the Catalans couldn’t keep Lionel Messi around was because of the massive wages of Antoine Griezmann, which kept them above La Liga’s new wage cap. Barca appeared to be relying on Antoine to pick up some of the slack after Messi’s departure. Now, however, he’s going back to Atletico Madrid:

In return, Barcelona signed *checks notes* 31-year-old striker Luuk de Jong, an interesting choice for a club whose main goal should be to clean out all their older, high-wage players and replace them with younger players with room to develop.

Meanwhile, Atletico were able to afford Antoine Griezmann partially because they loaned Saul Niguez to Chelsea, a move that supposedly should have enabled a CHO loan to Dortmund. But it didn’t, and then they still did it anyway. Fun times.

Meanwhile, Paris Saint Germain turned down an insane offer from Real Madrid for Kylian Mbappé... for two hundred and twenty million Euros.

In case you aren’t aware, Mbappe is already planning on leaving Paris for Madrid on a free transfer, so PSG have essentially sacrificed €220 million just to hold onto Mbappé for another year. They may have saved Real Madrid to be honest. Los Blancos put in a massive effort over the last few years to balance their books and get out of debt, so diving headfirst back into the wasteful spending probably wouldn’t have been advisable. Now that I think about it, though, they’ll probably just find another way to blow a different pile of money.

In the Bundesliga there wasn’t much movement on the final day, although Bayern Munich did send Chris Richards to TSG Hoffenheim on loan, which could be of interest to USMNT fans. The other big deadline move was made by RB Leipzig, who signed midfielder Ilaix Moriba from Barcelona for €22 million.

The Daily Buzz

What was the craziest move of the transfer deadline?