Have you seen the 1997 film Face/Off? It was on TV last night and I watched it for the first time. Nicholas Cage and John Travolta, the former a psychotic terrorist, the latter a stuck-up FBI agent, swap faces in a procedure which the surgeon makes sound suspiciously simple ("And then it's just a matter of connecting up all the nerves and muscle tissue" - hmm).
There are some japes in which Nicholas Cage uses John Travolta's face to sleep with John Travolta's wife, and John Travolta gets trapped in a torture prison. It's a lot like Freaky Friday.
Anyway, it was on TV in between two bits of breaking football news: the first, that Roberto Di Matteo has been given a two-year contract as Chelsea manager. The second, that Harry Redknapp has been sacked as Tottenham manager.
Now, these two have had dramatic seasons, both of which had a volte-face earlier this year - one a turn for the better, the other for the worse. You could do a fair job of convincing me they made some secret FBI deal to swap faces in January. But before you write me off as just hopped up on 90s action movies, which, admittedly, I am, you'll see that this makes a disturbing level of sense.
OK, so a quick recap of Di Matteo first. When Chelsea sacked André Villas-Boas as their manager in March, Di Matteo (then the assistant manager), was put in temporary charge. Chelsea looked rough at this point, limping through the Premiership and looking askance at the Champions' League.
The players were demoralised - it's no secret that they hadn't liked Villas-Boas much. He'd left superstars Frank Lampard, Michael Essien and Ashley Cole on the bench for a match against Napoli, and responded to a series of defeats by cancelling the players' day off - a workplace initiative that Ebenezer Scrooge might have considered, in his darker moments.
But Di Matteo galvanised them on a movie-style scale. Suddenly the team had energy and inspiration - they were the underdogs, the world was against them, and they had a mild-mannered Italian assistant coach in charge. Nobody liked them (come on, it's Chelsea). But overnight, they became unbeatable.
Their subsequent achievements read like the most outlandish of English football wishlists. Win the FA cup? Sure. Win the Champions' League? Easy. Become the most beloved team in the country, going on a zero-to-hero journey that draws admiration from swathes of new fans? Tick.
Chelsea owner and notorious sulk Abramovich could have ignored all this in his search for a new permanent manager, and word on the terraces was he was after Pep Guardiola at any cost, but eventually, yesterday he signed Di Matteo up for a two-year contract. And Chelsea lived happily ever after. Screenplays are being drafted even now.
Redknapp, who has something of the plotting vole about him, started the season well, but Spurs ultimately had a mediocre time and slipped down the rankings. To make matters worse, Redknapp suddenly faced a very real threat of conviction for tax evasion in January (at around the time that the face switch, which may or may not have happened, definitely happened), and shortly after being acquitted was thought by pretty much everyone to be a dead cert for England Manager. Must've been a slap in the face when, out of nowhere, the job went to Roy Hodgson instead. Bummer.
And Chelsea dogged Spurs all season, whacking them out of the FA cup by beating them 5-1 in the semi-finals and then nicking their place in next year's Champions' League by winning it themselves, the swines. Somewhere in Redknapp's house there's a dartboard with Di Matteo's face on it.
It's been a helluva spring for these two managers, their fates entwined. According to film law, their fortunes will only switch back once each truly understands the triumphs and difficulties of the other. This may take time. Meanwhile, if I never blog again, you can assume I'm correct, there's an international football face-switching conspiracy, and I've been silenced by UEFA's military intelligence branch.
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