As final whistles rang out across 10 Premier League grounds at roughly 10 to five in the afternoon, yesterday, some players' minds will have been cast towards upcoming cup finals, while other's will have basked in the euphoria of a title victory and, in stark contrast, some will begin to contemplate life in a lower division or at a new club altogether.
Then, there are those players who were already planning how quickly they could spunk their end of season bonus up the wall as their manager was giving the half-time team talk.
The post-season chaos that ensues across riotous corners of Europe, Las Vegas and the Caribbean are well documented and can (often unfairly) receive as much media attention during the football-less summer months than a lot of transfer sagas.
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Someone who has more than enough experience of post-season champagne wars and strip searches is The Secret Footballer who, ahead of the release of his latest book, From Marbella and Ibiza to Dubai and Las Vegas. What goes on tour, is no longer staying on tour!, chronicles some of the most debauched, salacious, champagne fuelled benders professional footballers have ever undertaken.
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Think Wolf Of Wall Street meets the first Inbetweeners film and you're in the right ballpark.
Wanting to understand how a footballer's mind works as the season finale approaches and what happens in the minutes, hours, days and weeks after that final whistle of the season blows, we caught up with English football's anonymous author to try and wrap our heads around just how fucked up things can get when a group of young, hormone driven millionaires who are seemingly navigated dick first are left to their own devices for a couple of weeks.
SPORTBIBLE: The end of the season often sees teams with nothing to play for 'down tools' and play as if they're already on the beach. Has this ever been the case at a club you've been at and if so, what's the worst example you've seen of it?
The Secret Footballer: Did you see the Leicester game with Tottenham? I even tweeted, "That result is what we call in the trade..."on the beach". It's been going on for years. That could actually have been one of the worst examples I've seen but personally I have actually been relegated by a team that completely tossed off the last game against the team that we were competing with to stay up. That rankles with me to this day. But it is difficult to play in games where you have nothing to play for. We want to play for a purpose. We're trained to play for an ultimate purpose, to win matches so that we might win a trophy or achieve a certain position that qualifies us for Europe etc.. But when we sit in mid-table and the season is all but over it is almost impossible not to turn your thoughts to the summer holidays.
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SB: Once the final whistle goes on the last game of the season, what's usually the plan?
TSF: We return to the dressing room, the manager will give a kind of debriefing. He'll thank the team for its efforts that season regardless of what it has achieved. He'll tell the players to look after themselves over the summer. But it's not an exodus.
The following week is spent taking weights, fat measurements and the dreaded Vo2 max test which will give an indication of fitness. This is all done so that the sports scientists can measure you against the same measurements when the players return on July 1st. Sometimes there will be fines for anybody that comes back over a certain level of tolerance on those weights but the higher you go up the professional leagues then the more professional players are in terms of looking after themselves. After that last week you are free to go on your holidays.
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SB: We've seen countless stories in the press down the years of footballers' holidays becoming debauched affairs. Is that often the case in your experience?
TSF: No, that's an unfair stereotype. There are countless players that are just...normal! James Milner for example has never had a sip of alcohol in his life and there are lots of players like that. They totally devote their lives to football. I played with more than my fair share. I abstained from drinking for two years and those two years were by far my most successful. However, there are also lots of footballers that totally want to let their hair down and go mad. As did I from time to time. That's what the new book What Goes On Tour... is all about. Because there were crazy fucking times. We did go completely over the top.
James Milner - sensible on and off the pitch. Image: PA
We did find ourselves hiring helicopters to travel to somewhere about five minutes away. We did see managers that we didn't like at the airport and phone in security to have their plane grounded and the manager strip searched. We did start champagne wars in Vegas. We did act like a total bunch of arseholes and do whatever we wanted.
It was all part of the come down from 10 months of being locked in a training ground together eating the same food, talking about the same subjects, focusing on the same objectives, answering the same questions form the media, over and over again. It is intense. And there has to be a pressure valve otherwise you end up going off your head and sat in front of a shrink as many of us did. And still d
Lots of my friends don't talk to me anymore because I have missed the funeral of one of their parents or the christening of their daughter or their wedding perhaps.
SB: What would a typical day be like for you during post-season?
TSF: Players will usually be going on holiday at the first available opportunity. But there are sound reasons for that. I'll have a week away an then perhaps a week somewhere else. My favourite destinations are a week with my immediate family in Dubai and then a week in a big villa in Ibiza with my extended family and friends, maybe 15-20 of us.
When I return home I'll be going to visit as many of my fiends as possible as this is really the only chance to let my hair down with them and sit on the river in England with a pint and just catch up. I don't really go to any events apart from the Henley Regatta which is a great day out. Most of my free time is spent patching up relations. Lots of my friends don't talk to me anymore because I have missed the funeral of one of their parents or the christening of their daughter or their wedding perhaps.
I have missed so many funerals, weddings and christenings over the years, even my own siblings. People outside of football don't get it. You can't say to the manager, 'gaffer I can't play against Chelsea this weekend, my brother is getting married'. You'd be shot down in a flash. In fact, you wouldn't even ask, you'd just be looked at in disbelief. Football is not a normal business, it doesn't play to the same rules as other jobs. So much of the time available to me in the summer is spent mending broken relationships usually with the promise of a couple of tickets to a game when the new season comes round. Football taketh away, and football giveth!
As soon as Ibrahimovic did his cruciate ligament you can guarantee that within minutes of the news Jose Mourinho's phone would have lit up with calls from agents offering the services of their strikers for the following season.
SB: Post-season is often dominated by transfer stories. Is that something that's easy or difficult to deal with?
TSF: Ninety per cent of players will know if they are likely to be on the move that summer. Yes, we have transfer windows but agents are active all year round. They are constantly assessing the market to see where an opportunity might lay for one of their players because even though we have windows, a striker may break his leg on February 1st. That's an opportunity for another striker in the summer. As soon as Ibrahimovic did his cruciate ligament you can guarantee that within minutes of the news Jose Mourinho's phone would have lit up with calls from agents offering the services of their strikers for the following season.
It's 24/7, that's how football works. It's why top managers like Guardiola and Enrique leave Barcelona for a break because they would burn out if they didn't. The other eight per cent of players will know that they could move and then there is about two per cent of players where a move comes totally out of the blue, usually on deadline day. And that's because a club's preferred targets fall through. All the deals on transfer deadline day are for players who were perhaps second of third choice on a manager's wish list. They still need a striker, or a left back or a midfielder but they are forced to work through their list until they find a player that meets with the transfer budget, the wage budget and has the desire to leave his current club and join a new one.
SB: After a long, hard season, how hard is it to switch off from football?
TSF: I was always ready for it. I worked my bollocks off on the pitch and in training and mentally I was ready for a complete change of scenery. I think most players were. It is a very intense job, the constant pressure to perform and the feeling in your stomach all week when you don't, the constant speculation and endless questioning and stream of bullshit in the changing room about things that don't matter in life.
The strained home life and the worry that you push to the back of your head that one day it will all be over and you'll be lost. But it goes away, albeit for a short while, when you're sat in the sun with a Corona staring at the view. And as the days tick down you get that back to school feeling. I found it easier when there was a summer tournament going on. A World Cup or the Euros. I'd watch that and my thoughts would go from thanking God that I was watching somebody else running around like a lunatic to desperately wanting to be back out there. That eased the transition from stopping playing to getting back in to it again.
SB: Just how difficult is that first day back for pre-season after a month and a half out of training?
TSF: Actually it isn't a month and a half out of training. It's two weeks. Every player gets a training program that he has to do over the summer. We have two weeks of complete rest after the end of the season and then we start with exercises, stretching and light running in our local gym. And that gently ramps up until we are ready for the first day back. We're even do all that on holiday in the hotel gym.
You have to make the assumption as a player that if you aren't doing it in the summer there is an opponent who is and it will show, maybe not in the first six months of the season but certainly in the run in. Strikers in particular really struggle with ankles that have seized up over the summer. So their off season training schedule is tailored specifically to keeping their ankles loose. The temptation when players come back is to get the balls out and start smashing them all over the place. You'll see strikers gently building up their power when they shoot but they won't be shooting on full power until a good two weeks in to pre-season training.
The women, the money, the fame, gambling, getting robbed, champagne wars against World Cup winners, entering bikini contests, taking girls that were overdosing to the hospital, watching two strippers get to know each other in our private pool, kidnapping air hostesses for four days... It was just a crazy time.
SB: What are your best and worst post-season holidays?
TSF: Vegas was just a joke, we took our bonuses with us of about £125,000 each and just went crazy. It's all in the book and it was pretty insane. I wouldn't do it again but I'm glad I did it and witnessed it. There was nothing or nobody that we couldn't have and we had it all. The story about the pool party and the diamond rings is an absolute joke. The women, the money, the fame, gambling, getting robbed, champagne wars against World Cup winners, entering bikini contests, taking girls that were overdosing to the hospital, watching two strippers get to know each other in our private pool, kidnapping air hostesses for four days... It was just a crazy time and we made the most of every minute.
I suppose the worst trip would have to be to Malia where we hired mopeds. We all turned down the main strip just as an articulated lorry came the other way. It clipped the back of my friends moped and threw him under the wheels. It's in the first chapter of the book, I won't forget looking down at that.
Think I'll just stick to Benidorm next time I go away with the lads, y'know.
Featured Image Credit: Paramount Pictures
Topics: Football