As the man behind Atlético for more than ten years, Berta has left a profound mark on this club. This introverted, cautious, pragmatic and low-key man has worked at Atlético de Madrid for eleven years, but has not left any public interviews or speeches, only his consistent actions under the guidance of a clear methodology.
Berta: A gentleman never speaks
His departure was not sudden, but the foreshadowing had already been laid: the shadow of ownership changes, changes in management structure, and a failed genius gamble, his status was gradually marginalized. The new leader Bucero (Carlos Bucero) who stands at the pinnacle of power in the sports department is not a traditional club executive, but an agent who once traveled at the intersection of transactions, negotiations and interests. Now he is pushed to the center of the stage to face his test.
Berta: Actions speak louder than words
Berta was born in Orzinuovi, a small town in Lombardy, northern Italy. In his formative years, Cesare Prandelli - the national team coach who led Italy to the final on European Championship in 2012 - was his idol. Berta had a close relationship with Prandelli's cousin and agent Lorenzo Moneta, and often visited Prandelli's home, which laid an important foundation for his future career.
Berta's football career began on the grassroots stage in night tournaments Tornei Notturni which are quite popular in the Brescia region. The teams he built - Rodengo-Saiano - were always able to find the best local players and win on an extremely limited budget, and his scouting genes also became famous, and Prandelli himself also provided some guidance.
Subsequently, in 2002, the young entrepreneur Tommaso Ghirardi acquired AC Carpenedolo who was still in the amateur league, Monetta immediately recommended Berta to him, and Berta, who was yearning for the football industry, resolutely resigned from his job as branch manager of Pompiano Bank and became sporting director of the team.
It is said that Berta’s mother almost collapsed: One day, your son, newly married, holding a golden rice bowl, enjoying the stable income and generous benefits that ordinary people envied, and realizing the bright future you had planned for him since he was a child, suddenly decided: "That's enough, I won't join this class, I want to go full-time to play amateur football." He turned around and entered the turbulent and turbulent world of football.
From this moment on, football is no longer just a hobby for spending time at night for Berta.
It is said that although Cape Nedolo is not a purely amateur team, the actual conditions are similar to those of amateur teams. Team staff and players can only receive reimbursement of participation fees, and the team treats everyone to a late-night snack after the game. But on this basis, Berta brought the team from the amateur league to Serie D, and then to Serie C. It was continuously upgraded within two years, and reached the Serie B promotion play-off final in 2006. Although it failed to successfully upgrade, Berta has already made a name for itself in Italy.
In 2007, after Ghirardi acquired the financially stricken Parma at auction, with the club all but certain to be relegated to Serie B, he invited Berta—the architect of Carpenedolo’s grassroots rise—to join the Crociati as the first sporting director of his tenure. Under Berta, Parma quickly returned to Serie A and finished eighth in their first season back.
However, in 2009, Girardi hired Pietro Leonardi as the club's CEO, and Berta took a back seat. Leonardi, who previously worked at Udinese, is a big fan of the Pozzo family and their operating methods, which is to recruit undervalued but talented players through a massive scouting network (before 2010, there was little or no data involved in scouting), package them and sell them at a high profit.
However, Parma did not copy the glory of the Pozzo family. Unlike the Pozzo family's multi-club model, Parma's management system is to reach loan agreements with clubs in Central and Eastern Europe, buy players and then lease them back to their place of origin. This brought the total number of players registered in Parma's first team to 220, and the chaos can be imagined.
Due to Girardi's eagerness for quick success and his love for success, coupled with the strong Leonardi's control of sports affairs, the introverted Berta had to be in a board of directors full of traps. He had to take responsibility for the players he opposed but the board of directors forcibly signed. He was assigned to deal with locker room issues that he was not good at. In the end, he was tired of being a scapegoat in front of the media and fans. Therefore, the partnership between the two parties broke down in 2009.
After leaving Palma, Berta is here He served as Genoa's sporting director from 2010 to 2012, and at that time he became synonymous with vision and ability. Subsequently, under the recommendation of Mendes, Berta began to play for Atlético as an international scout (ojeador internacional) in 2012, and officially joined Atlético as a technical director (director técnico) on May 1, 2013, mainly responsible for matters related to international players.
As early as February 2014, AC Milan wanted to hire Berta from Atlético de Madrid as the team's sporting director. In order to avoid losing Berta, Hill immediately renewed his contract until 2017 and set a liquidated damages of 2 million euros (to this day, for technical directors/technical secretaries, 2m is still a very high liquidated damages). After Girardi heard that Milan's invitation was unsuccessful, he disparaged his former partner, "It is too exaggerated to say that Berta works like this (as technical director) at Atlético. I think he is just doing "little things" there, and I don't even know what he is doing specifically.”
Italian media reports after AC Milan failed to pursue Berta: Genius scout Berta
However, in the same year, Parma was deprived of European competition due to failure to pay 100,000 euros in taxes. The truth of the financial crisis gradually emerged, and the evil deeds of Girardi and Leonardi were also exposed. Their wanton behavior made one of the oldest clubs in Italy bear a debt of 200 million euros, causing one of the former "Seven Sisters" to collapse under the pressure. The two were eventually imprisoned on charges of fraudulent bankruptcy.
Back to Berta. Since joining Atlético, AC Milan, Inter Milan, Manchester United, and PSG Saint-Germain have all lured him with high salaries, but he still chose to serve Atlético de Madrid, with Oblak, Jimenez, Griezmann and Morata all participating. In July 2017, Berta officially became team Atlético de Madrid sporting director.
Berta's recruiting style tends to look for mature immediate combat capabilities, rather than gambling on young "hopes"; choosing the most suitable players, rather than the strongest players(Being able to understand this truth and put it into practice is one of the biggest differences between scouts and sporting director), and ultimately achieve the goal of making the club self-sufficient.
Atlético’s strategic goal during his tenure is to go as far as possible in Champions League and at the same time strive to win the La Liga championship. After all, league results are the key to being able to participate in Champions League, and it is also crucial to Atlético’s economic status.
In the 11.5 seasons since Berta joined in 2013, Atlético has invested 1.313 billion euros in the transfer market and earned 1.165 billion in revenue. During this period, it has won two La Liga championships (13/14, 20/21), a Europa League champion (17/18), a European Super Cup champion (18/19), and entered the Champions League finals twice.
According to Transfermarkt data, Atlético’s income exceeded expenses in 5 of 11 years; seasons in which sales increased were often followed by seasons in which purchase budgets increased. Except for the 2019/20 season, Atlético will make major investments in forwards every season, with the second investment focusing on wide players.
In the past eleven years, Atlético has achieved profitability in full-backs (Hernandez brothers, Jonny Otto, etc.) and defensive midfielders (Thomas, Rodri, etc.). The transfer expenditure (€493m) and income (€478m) of the forward position are the highest among all positions, which shows that Atlético not only focuses on introducing high-level forwards, but also is good at obtaining profits from selling forwards. Unfortunately, the performance was dragged down by Costa (€60m repurchase) in 18/19. The most failed position is undoubtedly CAM/SS, with Xiao Fei, Lemar and Nicolas Gaitan all losing blood.
In addition, Berta’s influence on Atlético is not only reflected in player transfers and achievements, but also the key to Simeone’s ability to renew its contract with Atlético again and again. The so-called king and courtier, the basic trust between the coach and sporting director, or the basic unity of stance and interests, is the foundation for the mid- to long-term construction of the team.
Flow of power
Berta’s departure has been determined from 2023, or even earlier, and there are two clues behind it.
One is the "modern adjustments" made by the Hill family to the club's management structure and personnel in order to further introduce investment, change the ownership structure, and even eventually sell the club.
The second is Felix's failure in Atlético, which led to the bad relationship between Berta and Simeone, and Mendes.
In the summer of 2023, the club has already begun to formulate a new organizational chart. Atlético adopts the dual-director structure that has become quite popular among large clubs in recent years, which is to separate sports and non-sports affairs and establish a commercial director and sporting director;Although the titles may be different for each club, the essence is to highlight the talent allocation through two independent director positions and form a professional management structure to facilitate investors to evaluate the value of the club.
In terms of business, Óscar Mayo joined Atlético as the operations director on January 21, 2024, while Atlético’s original operations director Fernando Fariza is currently only responsible for membership-related affairs.
Oscar Maio
Oscar is only 34 years old and has already served as Tebas’ second-in-command and serves as the executive general manager (director general ejecutivo) of La Liga. After the team's structural changes, his title became dirección general de inresos y operaciones (dirección general de inresos y operaciones), responsible for all non-sports-related business activities of the club.
Within one year after he took office, although he jointly punished all members of the South Stand after the game against Real Madrid on Member’s Day of the 24/25 season, it was not only illegal, but also caused great harm to the relationship between fans and the team, and was a great irony of Member’s Day. In addition, the team's ability to control operating costs needs to be analyzed in conjunction with the financial report for the 24/25 season. But in the past year, Atlético’s achievements in business development, especially sponsorship, are obvious to all. Once the team is sold or Hill retires, he is likely to be the first candidate for Atlético CEO, which can also be understood as cultivating a successor in advance.
In terms of sports, Berta also welcomed an airborne leader on January 20, 2024, Carlos Bucero (Carlos Bucero)。
Screenshot in May 2024 on the Atlético official website. It is clearly shown in the leftmost column that in the adjusted football department, Berta needs to report to Bucero.
The original plan of Atlético was to introduce the former Barcelonasporting director Mateu · Alemany (Mateu Alemany) which was replaced by Deco. Alemany was already a senior executive of Mallorca as early as 1990. During his 15-year tenure, Mallorca continued to achieve the best results in team history, Hector Cooper During the leadership of the team, he won the Spanish Super Cup in 1998, won the third place in the La Liga in 1999 and entered the European Cup Winners Cup final. In 2001, under the leadership of Aragones, he won the third place in the La Liga (by the way, On February 1, 2025, it is also fate to be able to face Mallorca in the 500th game of Simeone and the anniversary of the death of my grandfather), and won the King's Cup in 2003 under the leadership of Manzano.
There are also many bright spots in transfers during the same period. Not only were they profitable in most seasons, but Eto'o was signed from Real Madrid in the summer window of 1999 for a record price in team history (4.4 million euros). This was also the reason why Mallorca was unstoppable at the turn of the century. It was sold for 27 million euros in 2004, which also made the club profitable.
Afterwards, Alemany was still in Valencia, working with the Singaporean Lin family. During this period, Valencia won the fourth place with La Liga in consecutive years (2017-2019). He withstood the pressure of the boss to protect Marcelino, and also allowed the Bat Army to win the long-lost King's Cup championship in 2019 when the team celebrates its centenary.
Under the pressure of Mendes, the Lin family insisted on firing the meritorious coach Marcelino. Alemany also parted ways with Valencia and went to Barcelona to serve as sporting director. During this period (2021.3-2023.9) he Not only did he face the complicated situation after Messi left the team, he also had to deal with the "famine" caused by the financial crisis after the epidemic. Therefore, he not only had to operate within a relatively limited budget, but also shared part of the CEO's functions to help Laporta handle complex financial projects such as salary cap and FFP. Under his management, Barcelona’s total payroll decreased by 300 million euros.
Alemany's management ability goes beyond the pure sports field. Looking at the world, it is also a rare sporting director+CEO double specialization. sporting director is the person who knows the most about economics and the person who knows the best about football among CEOs. He is closer to an all-round manager like Wenger, but his attitude is tougher. He has overcome countless seemingly insurmountable difficulties, and this is the quality that any top club expects.
Alemany once had the possibility of working with Atlético in the future
However, in more than two months of negotiations, Xiao Hill always insisted that Alemany and Berta would jointly take charge of the Atlético sports department, and could not clearly indicate who would be the leader of the sports department in the new structure. Alemany also directly discussed possible ways to cooperate with Atlético with Berta, but ultimately declined the offer.
After this, Atlético’s football director candidate turned to Bucero. Bucero worked for Real Madrid from 2006 to 2009, and is said to have been an international scout for Real Madrid. However, after leaving Real Madrid and before joining Atlético as sporting director, Bucero was more of a second-in-command of Mendes, the Spanish head of the brokerage company Gestifute, operating in the Iberian Peninsula.
Bucero (left) and Berta (right)
Although the 120 million signing of Felix was a deformed transaction driven by the ambition of the Atlético board of directors, Berta and Mendes played a key role in this transaction. It has played a key role, and this transaction has also become a stain on Berta in Atlético, making him unhappy in front of the team, Mendes and Simeone.
Your bed's board of directors spent a lot of money, and what they got is a baby who will never grow up and is self-centered; the value of Mendes's key customers has depreciated all the way in Atlético, and can only be used as a bargaining chip for accounting transactions; Simeone, as a person who has almost never been in the media The coach who had criticized the players personally also had irreconcilable public conflicts after Xiao Fei's outrageous words and deeds. Even Berta lobbied hard under the dual demands of the club and Mendes. Simeone, which has extremely high discipline requirements, almost never gave Xiao Fei a chance to play. Simeone has never really trusted Berta, and this has also caused a rift in the relationship between the two. The original distrust relationship between the coach and the director is a very natural and normal phenomenon.
Berta was originally recommended by Mendes, but when he gradually lost the trust of the team and Mendes, it is not difficult to understand why Atlético chose Bucero. Berta has changed from the original sporting director to the director in charge of the first team and youth training echelon. It seems that he still has great power, and he is still mainly responsible for the 2024 summer window, but his actual functions have degraded and his participation has become shallow.
In the more than ten years of working at Atlético, his personality not only made him not good at handling interpersonal relationships, but was also reflected in Atlético's relatively weak negotiation ability. Fifteen years ago, he was suppressed by the "Football Director" in Parma. Fifteen years later, he once again had a "Football Director" over his head. He once again chose to leave in the palace battle. This may be the limit that Berta's career cannot overcome.
As long as Berta doesn't plan to retire, he is the ideal choice for any club in the world that needs sporting director. However, his relatively introverted character, judging from his two experiences in Parma and Atlético, I personally believe that he needs to gain the complete trust of his boss in a relatively simple environment in order to display his abilities. This makes it difficult for him to adapt to today's increasingly complex environment and unpredictable wealthy families.
The Myth of the Dual Director Structure
In the modern club management system, the role of sporting director (Sporting Director) has become a key position in the club's long-term strategic planning, talent management and competitive performance optimization. However, the dual-director structure has exposed many management challenges in the practice of many clubs. Both Alemany (Mateu Alemany) and Berta (Andrea Berta) have been frustrated by the governance difficulties caused by this structure.
Xiao Hill's external statement is that he hopes that the arrival of the new football director can fill the gap between him (CEO) and Berta (sporting director) and serve as a bridge of communication between the two. This structure is relatively common in German clubs, that is, there is a "Chief of Sport" role on the club's board of directors, whose responsibilities usually cover macro-strategy formulation and high-level decision-making coordination; while specific personnel recruitment and team formation are handled by the "sporting director (Sporting Director)".
However, this model has not yet been successfully implemented in Spain. A relatively close management method is that Barcelona authorizes the Technical Director or the Head of Scouting, which to a certain extent forms a "two-headed dragon" pattern with sporting director. However, during the tenure of Joan Laporta, this system repeatedly led to the replacement of sporting director by the technical director or scouting director, causing management instability. Although the management practice of Alemany is regarded as one of the success stories, this success is more attributable to the outstanding abilities of individuals rather than the advantages of the dual sporting director architecture itself.
Even if it is stronger than Alemany, it was eventually replaced by Deco under the same structure. This shows that the structure lacks stability and may lead to discontinuity in the club's long-term development strategy. In addition, the frequent changes of team strategic decision-makers make it difficult to implement mid- and long-term plans and hinder the transfer of knowledge in the club.
In management, an organizational structure suitable for highly specialized and diversified operations, usually with clear functional divisions. For example, in the club's commercial operations department, the responsibilities of each sub-department are clear (such as membership management, ticketing operations, marketing, etc.), and their respective decisions will not have a significant impact on the overall operation of the club, so it is feasible to adopt a multiple business leader model.
However, the division of labor in the sports management department, especially the first team, is relatively simple, the skill requirements are relatively unified, and Nearly every decision may directly affect the club's competitive success. In this context, joint decision-making by multiple sporting director may bring about the following problems:
First, conflicts of position and interest. Generally speaking, sporting director is responsible for formulating long-term plans and overall development strategies. Conflicts in ideas among multiple decision-makers will not only cause the club's strategy to waver, but also create a tense internal atmosphere that is not conducive to work. In addition, except for clubs like Liverpool that rely on data to make transfer decisions and have no reliance on agents, behind every sporting director, there is a related agent network and relationships. This is no secret either. If there are two or more directors, there will inevitably be conflicts in the positions and interests of major decisions. In recent years, it is not uncommon for transactions to be aborted because of this.
Second, management authority is weakened. sporting director is the representative of the football "knowledge map" within the club and needs to lead the overall strategic layout from the first team to the reserve team and youth training echelon. They have to explain the development plan to the board of directors, convey tactical concepts to the coaching staff, and at the same time ensure the continuity of the training system for each echelon. The existence of multiple directors will weaken this authority, causing the management hierarchy to be unnecessarily broadened and elongated, resulting in the complexity of the decision-making chain. Finally, when disagreements arise between sporting director, most of the time the board of directors, who have limited professional knowledge and are at a loss what to do, will make random decisions, and the results can be imagined.
Third, the information flow is not smooth. sporting director needs to fully grasp the talent situation from the first team to the youth training echelon, and at the same time maintain close contact with grassroots scouts at home and abroad to build a complete market intelligence network. The setup of multiple directors will hinder the flow of information and make the understanding of the team's development situation one-sided. Even if both directors are selfless, due to the division of responsibilities, it is difficult for them to have a comprehensive and in-depth understanding of the club. Insufficient information sharing will inevitably affect the quality of decision-making and may even lead to talent gaps or development direction deviations.
With the entry of investors, the club is becoming increasingly corporate, and new management practices will inevitably emerge in endlessly as the division of labor among professional teams is refined, but The core of the team's sports department is always about how to play football, how to compete, and where the club wants to go. Therefore, when designing the management structure of the club, the division of powers and responsibilities of sporting director roles should be carefully considered to ensure the continuous improvement of long-term competitiveness.
The trials and worries of Bucero
Becoming sporting director is the ultimate dream of every agent. Bucero has entered a management position as a senior agent. So, how to evaluate his resume as an agent and predict whether he can successfully complete the role transition from agent to manager?
Evaluating the professional ability of a football agent can usually be considered from the following three core criteria:
- The strength of the players or coaches under the agent
- Whether the agent strives for the best interests of the client
- Whether the client's development meets expectations
In terms of the level of top European clubs, outside of Gestifute, the coaches (Lopetegui, De La Fuente, Karanka) and players (Marcos Alonso, Asenjo, and AtléticoB team Greek center back Ilias Kostis) personally represented by Bucero can only be considered passing, and have failed to form a real high-end customer matrix.
As an agent, despite De La Fuente's success story, Bucero also made major mistakes in his clients' career planning: while serving as Lopetegui's agent, he failed to properly handle his transition from the Spanish national team to Real Madrid. When Lopetegui was still the head coach of the Spanish national team, he announced that he was about to join Real Madrid. Lopetegui was fired the day before the start of the 2018 World Cup and was dismissed after a short period of coaching.
Taken together, Bucero has certain resource accumulation and industry experience, but there are still shortcomings in decision-making ability and career planning at critical moments.
Bucero’s first signing decision when he first joined Atlético in January 2024 was quite controversial. As soon as he took office, the club already had Barrios who had a duplicate position and came from youth training, so he brought in 18-year-old Vermeeren Vermeeren As a certificate of investment, an investment of 18 million was exchanged for 160 minutes of appearances in half a season. Fortunately, Vermeilen's own technical characteristics have the characteristics touted by modern football, allowing Red Bull Leipzig to take over the contract in the form of a loan + a forced buyout, thus avoiding Atlético's direct financial losses.
After watching Vermeilen's performance on behalf of Leipzig against Atlético this season, it is easy to understand why Simeone does not want him.
Vermeilen reflected two core issues in Bucero's recruitment strategy. First, duplication and waste of resources: Is it necessary to invest heavily in the same position when there are already similar players? Second, the urgent need has not been solved: winter window signings should be more targeted rather than scratching lottery tickets, and Atlético lost to Dortmund in Champions League. The reason for the defeat was the lack of personnel.
When Simeone encountered a crisis in October of the 2024/25 season, with only two wins in six games (including a diving win against sixth-level UE Vic in the Copa del Rey), the media released a series of coaching candidates: Marcelino, Lopetegui and De La Fuente.
Although the three coaches are quite reputable, it is difficult for them to compare with Simeone in terms of professional ability. Secondly, Marcelino, who is in Villarreal, has a large amount of liquidated damages. In the reality that Atlético has overdrawn its Club World Cup income this season, he is an inoperable object. And The remaining two coaching candidates, their former agents, are both Bucero。Atlético de Madrid is a club owned by Simeoneone outstanding figure masks a hundred failings. As the football director of the Atlético de Madrid team, Bucero faces huge challenges. However, he does not clearly realize this fact, but wants to take advantage of the opportunity to arrange for his confidants. His "level" is evident. In addition, not only does he lack the executive experience of Berta, but he is also too closely related to Mendes. It may be difficult to switch from a broker mindset to a manager mindset.At the sports management level, sporting director needs to proceed from the overall interests of the club instead of overly relying on certain agent networks. If Bucero cannot adjust its decision-making model in the short term, Atlético risks being further influenced by the agent group, which is a huge management risk for any club.
Currently, Atlético has chosen sporting director Severiano García, the former Atlético Mexican Satellite Team and Atletico de San Luis, to take over the original job of Berta, and the title became Technical Secretary (Secretaria Técnica) instead of any director-level position.
Generally speaking, the technical secretary also has a greater influence on the club's sports decisions. The difference from sporting director is that the former is mainly internal, while the latter is both internal and external. The arrival of Severiano Garcia also means that from now on, Atlético de Madrid is likely to have only football director Bucero and no longer have the position of sporting director.
If Atlético will also hire sporting director, it will have different meanings depending on who finally comes to power. But what is certain is that the winner of the palace fight and football director Bucero also does not want to work with another strong sporting director who has different positions. We can also judge the reality of the candidates based on this.
For example, candidate Antonio Cordón He has profound qualifications and the ability to plan, build a team and deal with redundant personnel. Although he was dismissed from Olympiacos after only a few months because his results did not meet expectations, the players he introduced in the summer window were the basis for Mendilibar to win the UEFA Champions League that season; in During his tenure as Betis director, when the team faced a severe financial crisis, he not only allowed the team to pass the salary cap, but also brought significant improvements to the team at both the sports and economic levels with a budget of La Liga, realizing the promise of "awakening the giant of Andalusia". I personally have a good impression of Antonio, but there will also be a "two-headed dragon" strange situation with him, and like Alemany, he will probably not be willing to play second fiddle to others.
As for other candidates, Ramón Planes’s operational highlights during Barcelona (2018-2021) are difficult to find, and it also caused the club’s salary structure to almost collapse. It can be judged that he basically has no ability to deal with economic problems. In addition to his ability, as a person who suddenly took his team from Betis to the Middle East to seek wealth in the 2024 winter window, when the club needed him most, and then openly coveted Manchester City's position while in the Middle East, his professional ethics cannot be trusted.
Juanfran is passionate about sports marketing after retiring. He has been a commentator on DAZN in Spain for a long time and has been widely praised. He is also the vice chairman of CF Intercity of La Liga. Considering the reality that the team is at the bottom of La Liga, his player resources and sports management capabilities are not very optimistic. It is likely that he will serve as a spokesman and the person in charge of internal communication without real power.
From personal experience, you can only believe half of what the agent says. Compared to Berta who rarely speaks in the media, although Bucero also claims to "do not want to be the center of attention", he has been quite proactive in the media since his days as an agent. Judging from Simeone's October crisis, he is also very skilled in using the media to show off.
As of now, the management performance of Bucero remains to be seen. The 2025 winter window was the first window for Bucero to take full responsibility. He failed to properly handle the issue of Lemar's departure, and he failed to fully meet the head coach's needs for midfielder signings. Taking into account the club's economic situation, the winter window market and the reality of talent decline, it is understandable that the operating space is limited, but it still shows a lack of motivation.
Although I am not optimistic for the time being, whether Bucero can become a real sports manager, or just a former agent with a title, will be known by the summer window of 2025.