The transfer window is finally closed. We have had months of what sometimes resembled a soap opera – rumors, gossip, players with tantrums and refusing to play, clubs that hijack the deals of other clubs. And the money – three billion spent and count.
Indeed, the feeling of money dominates the game more than ever with every window. And yet, despite the fact that all millions of pounds are thrown around the left, right and middle, the simple joy of football can still find a way.
Take the recent victory of Grimsby Town over Manchester United in the Carabao Cup. This was a result that all the trends of the past decades, that slowly crawling feeling that the modern game has changed in something that is no longer recognizable for what came earlier. That it is now a game dominated by money, played by the rich, for the rich.
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If that is the case, Grimsby Town did not get the memo. With all due respect for the League Two-Outfit, his fans and players, this should have been one night where they just look forward to the experience of rubbing shoulders with the big stars of Old Trafford, and hopefully take home a shirt and some long-term memories.
Unlike their counterparts in Manchester United, the Grimsby players were not fed by gigantic wage controls and star row. They were fed by something else – something even more powerful: passion, will and desire. And boy showed it.
They took the lead after only twenty minutes. By half an hour they were 2-0 up. Then previously predictable, Manchester United hit back in the second half to catch things. Passion is a powerful fuel, but it tends to burn around 75 minutes.
The game went to a penalty shootout and apparently heartache for the League two side. We had all seen this movement before, except this time, the end was different.
In what was a wild and crazy shootout, it was the Grimsby boys who held their courage and eventually won 12-11. If you don’t tell anything about their will, I don’t know what that does.
The local team of the fourth English football division had done it. They had eliminated the most successful team in the Premier League era and one of the largest and richest clubs in world football. A huge dead indeed.
In the end, how Grimsby Town reached one of the greatest disturbances in the history of Carabao Cup, fairly simple. They ran louder, were more tackled, chased and harassed and returned. They did the simple things, things in football that don’t require eye-water salaries. The things that are obvious for a group of players who play for their teammates, their manager, their fans, their city.
These are things that are less and less important for the modern, elite footballer. But for the local boy who drives his trade for a small but passionate crowd consisting of the locals, it is all that counts.
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But this result was not only monumental for fans of Grimsby Town. It was monumental for the entire football loving audience. For everyone who is a fan of the game (except of course, fans of Manchester United).
It was for everyone who likes to see a team scraping and fighting for their lives and never admit. For players who put their bodies at risk for their teammates and run until they can no longer run. Old school football, as it used to be.
Perhaps the most intriguing moment of the game came in the second half, when a wild storm reached the stadium and brought the game to a halt. Perhaps it was a sign of the gods who remind us of the simple joys of football.
Remind us that away from the money, wealth and glamor of the modern game and the clubs that dominate it, cannot beat anything of a good old -fashioned gigantic dead.