IT was getting to the end of what felt like a "55 hour" shift for Florent Ghisolfi and the future of Malick Fofana was still up in the air.
The forward was in Lyon with two private jets waiting for him, one destined for London, the other the North East. He couldn't decide which one to get on.
Back in Sunderland, Ghisolfi was doing everything in his power to convince the winger to join the Black Cats but the deal was very much in the balance.
It was at that stage that Ghisolfi took a call from Kyril Louis-Dreyfus, who was in Switzerland at the time.
"I was in the office, I couldn't be anywhere else with all the things I have," recalls Sunderland's director of football.
"We spoke. I told him, 'We have this problem', and he said 'I'm going, I'm not far'.
"He was in Switzerland, he could fly to Lyon, he said 'I'm going'. It gave me a lot of energy, 'Okay, let's push again!'."
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A few hours later, Fofana was unveiled as a Sunderland player. Even for Ghisolfi, well versed in the unpredictability and madness of football, this was a deadline day like no other.
"I have a lot of stories - I can write a book," he laughs.
"Eight years of [being a] sports director! But this one was something crazy. And I'm so sorry for the planet, for the environment, because it was a lot of planes for one signature!"
The intervention from Louis-Dreyfus made Ghisolfi immensely proud, for it shows, he says, the "alignment" behind the scenes that is stressed as so key at Sunderland.
"We speak five times a day," he says of his boss.
"You know him, how the club is so important for him, how he is involved.
" He has this capacity to [help]. He wants to understand, he wants to support, he wants to follow.
"We are always in contact and his mood was very positive. Even when it was a bit difficult, he was very positive, he was supportive. And we know where we are going. It's not depending on if we succeed in the last day of the market or not, we know the project we are building. We are not building the project, the team, for this season, we are building for the future. He's very positive."
As is Ghisolfi, though his focus in the immediate aftermath of the summer transfer window closing was getting some sleep.
"It was busy! I feel it was a day with 55 hours," he laughs, reflecting on deadline day.
"But at the end, we had the right organisation and I want to also congratulate all the team who made a very, very good job."
Fofana wasn't the only deal Ghisolfi was working on in the final hours. He'd been putting the finishing touches to the signings of Kevin Danso from Tottenham and Juan Angulo from Ecuador, while also trying to land Dodi Lukebakio from Benfica.
"It was difficult to work on every deal in the meantime, and we were also working in case this one [Fofana] was failing," he says.
"It was a rush! To be honest, on the last days, I didn't sleep too much. So you start to be tired, but you need to be lucid.
"It was a rush, but at the end, it was a very good experience also to see the commitment of the manager, ownership. I think you know that. The alignment, I think, is our strength today.
"We are ready to fight for this football club always, we are ready to fight for the environment, and it's what we did on this last long day."
There must have been times on deadline day he thought Sunderland were going to miss out on Fofana?
"No, we were always confident, but maybe it could have been two players or three," he says.
"The last one was Juan Angulo. It was not maybe the most important position to cover, but it was important for us because we had an objective with six players at the beginning of the market. Six was the target.
"So at the end, we're very happy. If it was five, it was okay, because we have a market in the winter, but we were very happy to finish like this."
Ghisolfi thinks Fofana will be well worth the dramatic deadline day efforts.
"I was following him already in Belgium, when he was with Gent," he says.
"I follow Ligue 1 a lot, so I was following him at Lyon. He brings talent, and he's someone who doesn't feel the pressure. He likes to be under pressure, and we need players like that also. And I think he's different from Talbi, he's different from Angulo. I think he's a very good addition to the team."
He continues: "I think it's good because we have players who already have a good experience, but they have a big margin. They have room to improve if they start to play consistently in the Premier League, so this is a very good thing for us."
And Ghisolfi believes Fofana is on to a very good thing at Sunderland. The winger's deadline day decision was the right one, says the 41-year-old.
"I always believed that he will sign at Sunderland because it was, in my opinion, the right choice for him," he says.
"He's a good kid, he's clever, he feels where he can be happy and where he can perform. And sometimes the market is like a game. You can lose 2-1 and you can win at the end, 90-95 minutes."
Till the end?
"Yeah, till the end, exactly. Till the end."
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