There are a lot of things I love about The Beautiful Game. One thing in particular I find great is how short the off-season is. Soccer goes on for ten months which is so gratifying considering, in contrast, the extended breaks of all American sports. However, two months is still plenty of time and nothing takes it up quite like the transfer market.

During the transfer season, anything goes. No player is too sacred to be kept out of some crazy rumor. The press throws names from anywhere every day giving football fans thoughts of dream signings. It can get quite addictive trying to follow all the transfer speculation and it’s a maddening experience that is often for nothing.

However, there are some rumors that are so ridiculous that they make my head spin. Recently, I came across one that truly made me want to check if what I was seeing was for real. Recent reports have actually suggested that Cristiano Ronaldo would leave Real Madrid and return to England with Manchester City.  The reports further suggested that the deal would come through if City paid him 150 million Euros which would include an astronomical 400,000 euros per week.

How would something like this even make sense? He spent two years at Manchester United flirting with the idea of moving, which caused an interminable saga of his future. After spending one year on his dream team, it just wouldn’t make any sense for him to come back to Manchester just to get a bigger paycheck.

One would laugh at such a rumor but this was actually going around numerous publications. It was so well-known that Ronaldo himself had to publicly reaffirm his love for Real Madrid to the media and proclaim that he isn’t going anywhere. I understand why he needed to do it but to me, it was just surprising that he had to because of how hyped it got.

In a way, I feel like just writing this article about it shows how caught up people get with transfer rumors. The press is always out to shock people into reading their stuff and linking Ronaldo with City is just the kind of crazy talk that grabs attention and sells newspapers.

Another player whose transfer speculation is starting to become headache inducing is Wesley Sneijder. After supposedly going to California to talk to his wife about going to Manchester United or Manchester City, he proclaims his love for Inter and living in the city of Milan. That I assumed was the end of it for the Sneijder sweepstakes. It turns out, I was wrong as only a couple days later, he reportedly says that only God can decide his future which means anything is possible. Does this guy want to leave or not?

Right now, people are currently buzzing over the Luka Modric saga after his bombshell over wanting to leave for Chelsea. This sudden change of heart seems rather odd considering he had recently stated he was happy with Tottenham and Redknapp was adamant about keeping his star midfielder. It’s stories like these that show that you can’t take anything the media says for granted because of how erratic the transfer market truly is.

At the end of the day, I feel like I get taken for such a ride with transfer rumors. I want to believe in some deals that sound plausible. Ultimately, the most difficult aspect of deciphering transfer gossip is assessing what is real vs. myth. It’s so funny how we can follow all of these teams’ supposed moves, and then Man United make a shock move in signing Phil Jones. Don’t get me wrong, I love this signing. But to me, it was almost out of nowhere considering the number of other players linked to United.

Transfer speculation is really what you make of it. For some people, it’s just entertaining to hear about world class players being linked everywhere. You wonder whether what you’re reading is actually true because for every successfully predicted transfer rumor from the media, there are about a million others that don’t come to light.