How the sporting director’s role is changing in Italian football

I don’t know when my daughter was born, but I know exactly that on 23 December 1976 we drew 2-2 with Udinese”, shouts a red-faced Ugo Tognazzi at a freezing Lino Capolicchio in one of the most dramatic scenes of “Last minute” (1987, directed by Pupi Avati), the one in which the protagonist, sporting director Walter Ferroni, realizes that the new president of the team for which he sacrificed the best years of his life is about to dethrone him from the role of plenipotentiary. Only in Italy would it have been possible to make a film about a sports director, a figure who outside our borders does not have the media relevance typical of our football. And yet, after years in which the strong man at the center of market affairs has dominated the summer scenes, the scenario is slowly changing, with some companies that have begun to take paths totally opposite to the classic ones.