Football has a funny way of making the world feel very small sometimes, and this latest story is a perfect example. Alvaro Arbeloa, Jose Mourinho and Marco Silva are essentially swapping jobs between Fulham, Real Madrid and Benfica, and the whole thing has been reportedly stitched together with the help of one super-agent working all the angles. You honestly could not make it up.
Marco Silva has done a genuinely decent job at Fulham. He kept them competitive in the Premier League without the budgets that the big boys enjoy, and there is a real argument that he deserved more credit than he got. Losing him to Benfica feels like a blow for a club that has been punching above its weight for a couple of seasons now. Still, when Portugal comes calling, it is hard to blame anyone for picking up the phone.
Then you have Jose Mourinho sliding into the Real Madrid picture, which is either brilliant or absolutely chaotic depending on your point of view. Mourinho at Madrid is not new ground of course, but bringing him back after everything that has happened in between is the kind of move that only Real Madrid would seriously consider. Love him or loathe him, the man wins things, and that is ultimately what the Bernabeu cares about above everything else.
And then there is Arbeloa, the former Liverpool and Real Madrid full-back, heading to Fulham as manager. That one raised a few eyebrows. His coaching experience is limited compared to the other names in this story, but stranger appointments have worked out before and stranger ones have also gone horribly wrong. Fulham fans will be hoping for the former.
The super-agent connection is the really interesting thread running through all of this. When one person can engineer three simultaneous moves at three big clubs across two countries, that tells you everything about how much power agents actually hold in modern football. The clubs think they are making the decisions, but sometimes the decisions are already made for them.
Let me know your thoughts.