Although the role of sporting director is losing its historic luster, the last championship passed from the Giuntoli-Spalletti axis. Will the same thing happen in Turin?
The risk that sports directors could soon end up in the closet of extinct professions, next to chimney sweeps and lamplighters, does exist. In some way, the fate of Paolo Maldini and Ricky Massara in RedBird’s Milan anticipated the times. Once upon a time there was the saga of Allodi, Moggi, Braida, Marotta… profound connoisseurs of the game, generally ex footballers, who received a treasure from the owners to invest and, together with the coach, took care of planning the team. Now the construction phase risks moving much further upstream. The investment fund, which decides to take over the ownership of a club, presents itself with its own technical project, with its own team of experts, more or less equipped with algorithms, which identifies the players to buy. The new sports director, degraded from the old charismatic charm of the market’s mammasantissima with full powers and a dazzling outfit, will only have the task of doing the shopping for third parties. This in the near future, which has already begun. In the meantime, however, the latest championship, that of Napoli, was born on the ancient director of sports director-coach.