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24th December 2024
I made my way out of Raatti Stadion after the last training session until Tuesday morning, knowing that Christmas was only a matter of hours away for me. The players had all left half an hour earlier to get back to their families and friends as I finished up some administration work in my office at the ground. Leaving into the car park, I never thought it had been this dark at this time of night but I was hardly surprised with it being winter.
Making my way towards my car I saw so much traffic passing across the motorway which I could only presume were people going over to see their families ahead of the winter festivities. As soon as I got into the car and turned the keys, the heating was turned all the way up so I wasn't shivering. Plugging in the aux cable into my phone and selecting a song from Spotify, a pair of headlights came into sight arriving into the car park. Assuming the car would stop and turn back round after making a wrong turn, my focus switched back onto my phone as the car gradually began heating up and the car went out of sight behind me.
Starting the engine, there was a sudden knock on the passenger side of the car. I wound my window down to see a man dressed in a black suit, covered in a black trenchcoat. He had tanned skin which gave me the impression he was a tourist from southern or eastern Europe.
"Mr. Virtanen?" He asked as he poked his head through my car window.
"Yes," I said, taken aback by how intrusive he was becoming. "What's up buddy?"
"Great." The man said, before pulling up the car lock on the inside of the car and clicking out the door handle. "Carlos Freitas, director of football at Associazione Calcio Fiorentina, Florence. Lovely to meet you."
Freitas buckled himself in with the seat belt as if he was coming home with me, but I switched the car engine off, meaning the music coming from the speakers paused leaving the awkward and unpredictable air of silence that comes with sitting with a Portuguese man alone.
"I couldn't help but notice that you have not got back in touch with Fiorentina after we sent our letter and left messages on your personal and work telephones," Freitas started. "I mean, as our number one candidate it is quite a loud and noticeable silence, especially with our fans getting on my back."
"Well, yes," I stuttered to begin with before getting stuck in my words. "It's a difficult choice and you know, I have a girlfriend and..."
As my voice wandered off into a sea of excuses for my wilful ignorance, I saw in the corner of my eye Freitas going into his bag that he had leant against him on his left hip. Searching for something, he eventually tapped a few papers on his lap to make sure they were tidy.
"Aapo, I don't really care to be honest." Freitas bluntly said as he cut me off during my explanation for not replying to Fiorentina's call. He passed over the papers that he had prepared on his lap. "Take a look at these," Freitas paused before starting again, not allowing me to get a word in. "In my role, it is my duty to find out every little detail about a target for the club. What they do daily, what they earn, how much they work every week, what kind of people are around him.
"I know how much you earn. I even know your damn tiny 'bonuses' that you get. They aren't bonuses, Aapo. At Fiorentina, that is what we call
"cambio tasca". Pocket change. I know you're looking at the figures, you're looking at who is on our books as I'm sure you've looked at our squad during your own work hours, I know you're comparing. There is an increase in every single aspect of your life over in Italy. Personal wages. Wage budgets. Transfer budgets. Bank balance. European football places. You name it, it's probably ten times better than what you get here in Finland.
"And if it's your wife, girlfriend or whatever that you're worried about - pathetic. For every good looking lady you have in Finland, and trust me I've seen some last night, you have one hundred beautiful models in Italy. With that wage you'd be getting in Fiorentina you could pay for hundreds of women to sleep with you every night if it makes you any comfier.
"Anyway," he sighed. "Keep the papers, my details are at the bottom. Give me a call when you've accepted it."
Freitas didn't let me speak once throughout his speech despite my failed attempts to intervene. He said his piece and left, getting into his Alfa Romeo parked behind me and pressing his car horn as he drove past my stationary vehicle with me and a pile of papers sat in front of me.
Freitas seems confident and perhaps rightly so, although perhaps the not-so-vague intrusion into Aapo's private life might play on your mind? Who knows. A good offer, but home is where the heart is (I'm trademarking that phrase before you translate it to Finnish and you use it in your next update) 
