Sporting director, football director, or technical director… This position is known by different names. But as most known form, sporting directorship, refers to being responsible for the football operations of a team which became a milestone in the corporation of football clubs. Not just transfers and squad planning, but also the hiring of the manager is determined by the sports directors in terms of the game to be planned. FOCUS has compiled for you the leading names of this field in the last 30 years.
Ariedo Braida
Ariedo Braida, former AC Milan legendary director, was one of the men responsible for bringing some of the best players to the club and played a key role for nearly three decades. He served as CEO and sporting director for the Italian giants between 1986 – 2013.
The 90s were bookended with title wins for AC Milan. From the late 80s, they won nearly 30 trophies with Ariedo Braida including eight Serie A titles and five Champions Leagues.
Currently, he is the CEO of Cremonese, following a four-year tenure at Barcelona. Braida took over the club in December 2020 and the next season they earned a direct promotion to Serie A.
Cremonese hasn’t been seen in Italy’s top flight since 1996, a club that during the Eighties and Nineties spent a total of six seasons in the top tier. Fagioli and Zanimacchia, who joined the club on loan from Juventus after Braida, have played a key role in their promotion.
Giuseppe Marotta
65-year-old Marotta, one of the best executives in the football industry, was the main architect who helped Juventus build an extraordinary winning dynasty between 2010 and 2018. After Giuseppe, Juventus won the Serie A title every season except for his first campaign, until 2020/21.
Juventus, who surprisingly took part in the 2015 Champions League final, built one of the world’s best quality midfielders at a low cost. Andrea Pirlo, Paul Pogba, Sami Khedira, Aaron Ramsey, and Adrien Rabiot joined the Old Lady on a free.
While the arrival of Cristiano Ronaldo has given Juventus a major boost, signing such a player would not be possible without Marotta, who did incredible work behind the scenes in Turin.
He joined the Nerazzurri shortly after he departed from Turin and continues to serve as their chief executive for football. In Giuseppe’s first season, Inter finished second in Serie A, and in the next campaign, they won the title. In 2021/22, the Nerazzurri finished second in the league, narrowly losing out to their rivals AC Milan.
Txiki Begiristain, Manchester City
Txiki Begiristain is the man Pep Guardiola has paid tribute to by saying “without him, I would not be here.” He was the sporting director who turned to Guardiola when Barcelona sacked Frank Rijkaard at the end of the 2007-08 campaign.
In the 2011/12 season, Manchester City had just won their first league title in 44 years in the most dramatic circumstances imaginable, but the summer transfer window was an unhappy time for them. In October that year, Guardiola’s mentor arrived to take on the mantle of targeting new players after 7 successful years in Barcelona.
In Begiristain’s first summer transfer window at the club, Fernandinho signed from Shakhtar for £30M. He was vital in helping City to their first league-and-cup double in his debut season. Also, Manchester City has shown a tendency of signing players with a high ceiling and transforming them into world stars with Begiristain.
If we consider Barca’s impressive era and City’s transformation, when it comes to sporting directors that can help a club build a winning mentality, Txiki is simply the best.
Ralf Rangnick
Ralf Rangnick, who is currently the manager of the Austria national team, is highly respected by the Red Bull Group.
He first joined Red Bull as Leipzig’s sporting director in 2012, bringing young talents like Emil Forsberg, Naby Keita, and Timo Werner all to the same club. He was present as RB Leipzig rose to the German leagues, becoming Bundesliga title contenders and qualifying for the Champions League.
Leipzig, which was then in the fourth-tier of German football, was not even the first club Ragnick vitalized. He had already guided Schalke to a runners-up finish in the 2004/05 Bundesliga and tasted the UEFA Champions League when he was lured to the third-tier Hoffenheim in 2006 with the chance to write himself into the club’s legend.
Monchi
Ramon Rodriguez Verdejo, famously known as Monchi, is an elite sporting director. After working as sporting director at Sevilla for 17 years, packed his bags for Italy. He lasted less than two years at AS Roma and is currently in his second era at Sevilla.
Before he arrived in 2000, Sevilla hadn’t won a major trophy since 1948. Following his involvement, the club has won six UEFA Europa League and one UEFA Super Cup. Also, he raised the standard of the club’s academy, which eventually produced fantastic talents in the likes of Sergio Ramos, Jesus Navas, Albert Moreno, and Jose Reyes.
Promotion to the top tier, the young talents from the academy, 10 trophies, and more profit in transfer fees – when Sevilla appointed Monchi as their sporting director, even they could not have predicted it would be such a success.
Luis Campos
Luis Campos is a veteran sporting director who has worked in top clubs. He was a scout for Real Madrid, while Jose Mourinho was coaching Los Blancos.
Campos joined Monaco in 2013 and built a team that changed the fate of the club. Under his directorship, Monaco produced great youngsters who have gone on to become excellent superstars, and the club earned too much money from big sales. Kylian Mbappe, Anthony Martial, Bernardo Silva, Thomas Lemar and others shone in Monaco under his role. Also, the close contact between Campos and Mbappe is already well known.
With the legendary generation created by Campos, Monaco reached the semi-finals in the Champions League and won the Ligue 1 title.
The Portuguese sporting director wrote a new story after signing with Lille in 2017. Campos has brought in young players on cheap deals and sold them on huge deals.
The French side generated a total of 150 million euros from the sale of Victor Osimhen and Nicolas Pepe. Campos also revived the careers of Renato Sanches, Jose Fonte, and Loic Remy.
Lille has been transformed from a mid-table club to Champions league participants and won the Ligue 1 title in 2021.
In 2022, Luis Campos joined French giant Paris Saint-Germain and was named as the Football Advisor. However, he is a sporting director at the club and has already brought Hugo Ekitiké, Renato Sanches, and Nordic Mukiele to the club.
In 2022, Luis Campos joined French giant Paris Saint-Germain and was named as the Football Advisor. However, he is a sporting director at the club and has already brought Hugo Ekitiké, Renato Sanches, and Nordi Mukiele to the club.
Campos, who has won two Ligue 1 titles against PSG in Monaco and Lille, will work for the capital side now.
Michael Zorc
Michael Zorc is undoubtedly one of the best sporting directors in the world.
Zorc, 59, has dedicated 43 years of his life to Borussia Dortmund. He was a BVB player from 1978 to 1998, and after his retirement, he immediately became a sporting director at the club. He was sporting director for 24 years until leaving the club in 2022.
The club won two Bundesliga titles at the expense of Bayern in the last decade and reached the UEFA Champions League final in 2013.
He has overseen the emergence of great young players from the academy. Also, he can spot promising youngsters and make them superstars, as we’ve seen with the likes of Robert Lewandowski, Ousmane Dembele, Erling Haaland, Jadon Sancho, and Jude Bellingham, and others. Zorc has also raked in huge profits for Dortmund with the sales of many players.
Borussia Dortmund appointed Sebastian Kehl, another club legend, as sporting director after Michael Zorc left. We’ll see how successful Kehl will be. But, it is clear that the fans will miss Zorc very much.
Andrea Berta
Andrea Berta, a former banker, was awarded as the best sporting director in football by the Globe Soccer Awards in 2019.
Berta, who first stepped into the sporting director role with Carpenedolo in 2002, rose through the ranks in football management after working with Parma and Genoa.
He became Atletico’s sporting director in 2017. While Berta played the key role in the signing of the likes of Joe Oblak, Antoine Greizman, Joao Felix, Kieran Trippier, Renan Lodi, Felipe, Marcos Llorente, and Luis Suarez, the club has won the LaLiga title under Diego Simeone.
But “The years of the big signings have finished,” Berta told Marca, marking a new era at Atletico Madrid.
“For us, the important thing will be to continue with this squad, that has value, with players who have a great future.”
Michael Edwards
Edwards left Liverpool in June 2022, after 11 years. He worked as sporting director for 4 years and has helped transform the Reds into the best team in the world.
During his time at the club, he was responsible for every Liverpool signing since 2016. Looking at the world-class stars at Liverpool like Sadio Mane, Mohammed Salah, Andrew Robertson, Giogino Wijnaldum, Virgil Van Dijk, Allison, Fabinho, and Diogo Jota, Edwards played a role in all of the signings.
He implemented the plan given to him by the Reds owners – and maximized profits, while still achieving success on the pitch, despite running on a lower budget than many of Liverpool’s rivals.
Also, Edwards is a master of negotiating a good price for players on the way out. He has proven it as well with the sales of surplus players in the team like Jordan Ibe, Dominic Solanke, Mammadu Sako, Christian Benteke, and Danny Ings on profitable deals. Phillipe Coutinho’s Barcelona move is his greatest sale.
Florian Maurice
After spending 10 years at Lyon, 48-year-old Maurice became Stade Rennais’ sporting director in 2020.
The club’s policy changed after Florian Maurice. Under his direction, Rennais began to give more chances to young players and signed many young talents from various European countries as well.
Chelsea paid the French club 24 million euros for the Senegalese goalkeeper Edouard Mendy. Eduardo Camavinga signed for Real Madrid and Rennais earned 31 million euros from this move. Mathys Tel moved to Bayern Munich this summer, after playing only 89 minutes.
Claiming a European spot is difficult when you lose your best players. Yet, Rennes has pulled off that feat in the past five seasons.
They finished fourth in the league standings last season and were only 3 points behind the Champions League line.
Rennes is building a new mentality and Maurice has a big part in it.
By Idil Erin Tetik
@idilerintetik
