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Nowadays, football coaches don't have total authority over inner-workings of a football club. We now live in the era of sporting directors.
While the coach takes care of the team in daily work which includes training, leading and picking up the team, the sporting director has the job to oversee the whole footballing side.
Sometimes, sporting directors are as important as coaches. In this article, we take a look at 8 best sporting directors in the world right now. Important to say, the list is in no particular order.
Also see : Womens World Cup Bracket, Copa America Standings, Gold Cup Standings
#1 Michael Zorc (Borussia Dortmund)
A large credit for Borussia Dortmund's achievements in recent years goes to their sporting director, Michael Zorc. He has dedicated his entire life to Borussia Dortmund. He spent his career playing for this club. As a player, he won two Bundesliga titles and one Champions League title. At the age of 36, Zorc decided to retire from playing football. After retirement, he stepped up to take the position of sporting director in this club. He is still at the club and his current contract expires in 2021.
With him at this position, Borussia Dortmund have had some golden moments including three Bundesliga titles (2002, 2011, 2012), two DFB Kup titles (2012,2017) and two SuperCup titles (2014, 2015). During his spell, some of the very best coaches in the world have been on the bench of this club including Jurgen Klopp and Thomas Tuchell.
However, the most impressive thing that is connected to Zorc is his brilliant sense for selling the players. His strategy is to develop young players and introduce them on the big stage. The best example of that is Jadon Sancho, a player who is taking the whole world by storm this season with excellent games in the Black and Yellow shirt.
This strategy has led Borussia Dortmund to various big-money transfers in recent years and latest of that kind is Christian Pulišić's transfer to Chelsea for £58 million. Other examples include Ilkay Gundogan, Mario Gotze, Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Piere Emerick Aubameyang, Ousmane Dembele and many others.
Because of his brilliant business sense, he was wanted by Arsenal in the summer of the 2017 but he decided to stay with his childhood club.
#2 Txiki Begiristain (Manchester City)
From 1988 to 1995, Aitor "Txiki" Begiristain played for FC Barcelona. In 1999, he retired from playing football and in 2003 he came to the position of the sporting director at FC Barcelona along with Joan Laporta who became the president of the club.
When they came in 2003, Barcelona had gone four years without a trophy and were lurching from crisis to crisis. In their mandate, Barcelona went on a whole new level. Txiki deserves all credits for discovering Pep Guardiola whom he appointed as Barcelona's manager in 2008.
Laporta once said: "Bringing in Txiki was the best desicion I ever made."
Laporta left Barca in 2010, and Txiki also followed his steps. In 7 years under their guidance, Barca won 5 league titles and 2 Champions League titles.
In 2012, Txiki came to Manchester City. Once again, he was able to bring in Pep Guardiola. The Catalan manager has already won 3 trophies in 2 seasons at Manchester City. Most importantly, they play in familiar "Tiki-Taka" style and with Txiki and Pep in charge, Manchester City's future looks very bright.
#3 Giuseppe Marotta (Inter Milan)
In 2006, Juventus got relegated because of their scandal called Calciopoli. They spent the 2006/07 season playing in Serie B.
However, they spent only one season in Serie B and immediately returned to the top flight of Italian football. After their return to Serie A, they were struggling to join the title race. Also, they were without Champions League football.
These years have been very tough for them. The club desperately needed a turnover. In May 2010, Giuseppe Marotta came in as the CEO for sport and when you look now, this has been the best possible move. In his first year at the club, he already started to rebuild the squad. He brought in 14 new players.
In May 2011, Antonio Conte was appointed by Marotta as Juve's head coach and it was a tremendous decision. Conte's coaching skills combined with Marotta's sense for business has made Juve one of the best teams in the world. Marotta has an incredible sense to bring in free players. He will be known for creating one of the best midfield lines in the world for an incredibly cheap price: Paul Pogba (came for free), Arturo Vidal (came for €10.5 million), Andrea Pirlo (came for free), Claudio Marchisio (academy product).
This summer he even managed to bring Cristiano Ronaldo to Juventus. In December 2018 he left Juventus and joined Inter Milan.
#4 Monchi (AS Roma)
Roman Rodriguez Verdejo, generally known as "Monchi" spent his entire career playing as the goalkeeper for Sevilla. In 2000, Sevilla was relegated to the Spanish Segunda and after that Monchi was appointed as the sporting director of this club.
At the beginning of his new job, he got two tasks from the board; to develop the academy and to develop the scouting department in and outside Spain. Monchi has fulfilled all of his duties. During his mandate, the club introduced some incredible talents from the academy like Sergio Ramos, Alberto Moreno, Diego Capel, Jesus Navas and many others.
But, his particular ability is finding some relatively unknown players for cheap and turning them into superstars. Then he would sell those players for enormous amount of money. Some examples are Ivan Rakitić, Dani Alves, Adriano, Aleix Vidal and many others. He came to AS Roma in 2017 leaving Sevilla with an incredible scouting network of 700 scouts.
The transfer wizard does the same excellent job at Roma. He has already found some young talents who will be sold for big amount of money.
#5 Ralf Rangnick (RB Leipzig)
The ex-coach of Stuttgart, Hannover, Schalke 04 and Hoffenheim, Ralf Rangnick is the man who is responsible for RB Leipzig's remarkable rise in the past years. In the summer of 2012, he became the sporting director of both, RB Leipzig and RB Salzburg. However, a few months later he stepped down from that position at RB Salzburg to focus on his job at RB Leipzig.
RB Leipzig is the youngest club in the Bundesliga as they are only 9 years old. In those 9 years, they went a road from the last tier of German football to the elite of German's very best clubs. In addition to that, they now regularly play European competitions.
Also, they have the youngest squad in the Bundesliga because Rangnick is a brilliant talent spotter. Rangnick's strategy is to buy players under 24 years and then turn them into real superstars and earn on them. The best example is Naby Keita who left the club this summer for a record fee of £53million.
Another excellent business for Rangnick is the signing of Julian Nagelsmann who will become the coach of the club as from the summer. Nagelsmann is known for his tendency to work with young players. The "Nagelsmann-Rangnick" combination could work perfectly and with them, in charge, the future looks even brighter.
#6 Michael Edwards (Liverpool FC)
Michael Edwards is the man who has made Liverpool competitive on the market again. The 39-years-old sporting director was promoted into one of the most powerful roles at Liverpool Football Club in November 2016. He is responsible for Liverpool's incredible achievements in the recent transfer windows.
The club has been strong enough to bring in some incredible players like Virgil van Dijk, Mohamed Salah, Alisson and Naby Keita. Also, he has made some incredible outgoing transfers like Phillippe Coutinho's department to Barcelona for an initial £105 million, which could rise to £142 million with various clauses being met. The latest example of Edwards' brilliance is Dominic Solanke's transfer to Bournemouth for an incredible fee of £19m.
When you add in the fact the Reds are able to get international stars like Xherdan Shaqiri for less than they are selling reserve players, Liverpool fans have every reason to salute this man.
#7 Andrea Berta (Atletico Madrid)
A banker in his former life, Andrea Berta is current sporting director of Atletico Madrid. Before Atletico Madrid, he was in various Italian clubs including Genoa and Parma. In May 2013, he came to Madrid and in the beginning, he was a scout. After that, he became the technical director where he retained for four years.
Since July 2017, he is the sporting director of the club from Wanda Metropolitano. Along with Cholo Simeone, Berta is most responsible for Atletico's road from relegation candidates to La Liga title challengers.
Berta is a real transfer guru. He has helped Atleti to sign and keep some of the best players in the world. Jan Oblak and Antoine Griezmann are the most famous player signed by the Italian. This summer, he beat Liverpool and Arsenal in a race to sign Thomas Lemar from Monaco.
Because of his incredible work, he was a transfer target for Manchester United this summer, to become their first-ever director of football there. However, he decided to stay with Atletico.
#8 Luis Campos (LOSC Lille)
Luis Campos, a highly capable talent spotter, was at Monaco from 2014 to 2016. In this period, Campos' strategy was clear: buy cheap. He is the man responsible for buying Fabinho, Tiamoue Bakayoko, Bernardo Silva, Thomas Lemar and many other. Also, in that period, Kylian Mbappe got his promotion to the first team.
He deserves a lot of credits for Monaco's achievements in 2016/17 season in which they won Ligue 1 title and also got to the semi-finals of UEFA Champions League. From 2017 onwards, Monaco sold all of these players for an incredible amount of money. At that time, Campos wasn't in the club anymore but it can't be forgotten that he is the man that collected all these players.
Campos is now at LOSC Lille where he continues with the same strategy from Monaco. His best exhibit at the moment is Nicolas Pepe, the 23-years-old winger who is wanted by Unai Emery at Arsenal.
