Joao Felix travelled just over 20,000 miles this summer on Atletico Madrid's pre-season tour, and he never kicked a ball.
Having gone public on it being his 'dream' to play for Barcelona he had already burned what remaining bridges he might have had with the Atletico fans.
And yet on the last day of August he was still in Diego Simeone's squad - the coach who didn't want him and the coach he did not want to play for.
But on deadline day he got the move to Barcelona he had been yearning for and in just three weeks since then everything has changed.