Chelsea defender David Luiz has been recalling his last minute January move from Benfica.
According to the Fifa website, it was one of 2,451 transfers completed during the last January window, with the number far higher during the summer months.
"I remember it was very hard, I was suffering because it was in the last hours on January 31. I still trained for Benfica in the morning and my agent was watching from the side and asked me to come and get ready to go to the airport," he told chelseafc.com.
"There was a plane waiting but they said there would not be time to get to London so we had to come out and do everything via fax to get my signature done before the deadline.
"I thought I would be staying with Benfica but I put my trust in God, and in the end it was okay and I had the opportunity to come to Chelsea. I'm very happy here now with the players and all the people, so everything was okay, but it was very hard."
The defender is something of a veteran of the last-minute deal, having experienced something similar when first coming to Europe in 2008.
When I went to Benfica it was also the 31st so I had a little experience of it, and if I told that whole story you would think I was lying," he says. "It is a long story, but I couldn't find my passport, I had never used it. My dad took a whole cabinet apart to find it, and the passport was behind the cabinet.
"I missed some flights and had to borrow the private plane of a famous Brazilian singer, Ivete Sangalo to get to Sao Paulo.
"Then I missed the plane to Lisbon and went back to my parents' house, my agent didn't want to speak to me because he didn't think it was going to happen. The next day was the 30th, and the Benfica president didn't think I existed but I spoke to him on the phone. I had an injury also, and didn't think I would pass the medical, but I didn't have to take any medical examinations in Lisbon.
"I arrived on the 31st and nobody recognised me, I was very skinny and didn't have a jacket for the European weather. In the end everything went well and I signed a loan contract for six months. In that time I showed what I was capable of doing and signed another contract, so it was all worth it."
