Inter Milan: Christian Eriksen's signing announced with a strange, dream-like video

Christian Eriksen is announced by Inter Milan

Inter Milan's new Christian Eriksen announcement video leaves us with a lot of unresolved questions.

We thought that the transfer announcement video was dead as a concept. Left behind in 2018, when it seemed like every club in the world was competing to announce new transfers in more and more innovative ways.

And then Inter Milan step back into the arena with this bizarre offering, which has the exact energy of a tourist board advert meets Christopher Nolan's latest project.

Now then. There's a lot to unpack here, so we've tried to approach it in manageable chunks.

Are Inter really #NotForEveryone?

As club slogans go, this new line from Inter Milan feels fairly vulnerable to misinterpretation.

What's not for everyone? Inter Milan?

Or, are we to understand that Inter Milan is some kind of exclusive destination club now? Because, that could be contended. Their transfer strategy this year has largely centred on mopping up out-of-form, out of favour Premier League stars, a number of whom are now in their early thirties (see also: Ashley Young, Romelu Lukaku, Victor Moses, Alexis Sanchez).

To be fair, that's a policy that has so far worked pretty well. Inter currently sit second in Serie A, just three points behind leaders Juventus.

Fair play.

Is any of this real?

"Some dreams are more vivid than reality," says the dramatic, North American voice-over (a signature of modern European football documentaries reaching out to international audiences).

So, what are we to understand from this? Have we just dreamt Christian Eriksen's transfer to Inter? We hope not, because it's been reported as a news story on the site this morning.

"This dream is not for everyone," we're told, "This is real."

Right, so it's not a dream then? Or, it is a dream, but it's also IRL…

What kind of strange, David Lynch-ean, magical realist universe have they created here? And why?

Presumably the suggestion is that this is a dream made manifest for someone. Given the amount of recent links between and Spanish clubs Real Madrid and Barcelona, you'd be forgiven for thinking this perhaps hasn't always been the dream move for him.

We have to talk about Eriksen's acting

He's famous for his skilful delivery, apparently only in a rather exclusive sense of the word.

It's actually quite impressive that, having been excused from having to do any dialogue, Eriksen still manages to put in one of the most wooden performances we've ever seen.

Christian Eriksen pretends to be asleep

Firstly, no one sleeps like this - like a painted, Renaissance art subject. It would be really uncomfortable. Think of the pins and needles.

Christian Eriksen has a smile

And why is this the most unconvincing smile we've ever seen?

Christian Eriksen does a walk

Also, how does he manage to make his walk to camera look quite so stiff and awkward? It's just walking - surely he has to do that every day?

"Dreams can make you see things you didn't think you'd ever see"

Maybe we're being unnecessarily difficult here, but we've been reporting rumour of a move to Inter Milan for the Danish midfielder in our gossip pages for most of the month.

It's been a pretty badly kept secret that he's wanted a move away from Spurs for ages now. He told a Danish newspaper back in June that he was ready for a new challenge, with a year left on his contract.

Are Inter really going to move like this is some kind of revelation for anyone?

How much did this cost to make?!

Presumably, they've hired out the whole of the La Scala Opera House (and possibly an orchestra) for the production. That can't have been cheap. Plus, those graphics on the end-board - the ones that look like the aurora lights - they weren't knocked together by some office junior who's just done an after-effects course. Ooft.

The whole thing leaves us with a lot of questions, mostly unresolved. And you have to wonder whether that's intentional. Does Christopher Nolan tell you what to think at the end of Inception? Are we really given concrete answers about the dream sequences in Mr. Robot? No - the directors leave you to do the working out. It's called art. We're not going to hold your hand for you.

We do wonder though whether this may spark a renaissance for transfer announcement videos. Have there actually been any since that Alexis Sanchez one in January 2018?

They seemed to fall out of vogue after that - club social admins perhaps conscious of how vulnerable that left United to criticism once it transpired that Sanchez's tinkle on the ivories might constitute the best performance he would ever give in a United shirt.

Before then though, these videos were everywhere. And some of them got inventive.

Like Yeovil Town looking to dating apps for inspiration…

Or Aston Villa pretending to announce John Terry on the group chat…

Halcyon days.

In the meantime - Celtic are now announcing players on TikTok. A whole new world...