Atletico Madrid coach Diego Simeone has had many trusted lieutenants on and off the pitch during his 13-year spell at the club, but he would count Arsenal’s new sporting director Andrea Berta near the top of that list – despite the pair parting company at the start of this year.
Berta left the Spanish club still with a reputation for being a polished professional who made more right calls than wrong, never sought the spotlight, and whose prints are on Atletico’s most recent league title in 2021 as well as their spectacular transfer business last summer.
Atletico’s signings included Julian Alvarez and Conor Gallagher from Manchester City and Chelsea respectively, as well as Norway striker Alexander Sorloth from Villarreal, and they still have Treble aspirations going into the final third of the campaign.
They sit a point behind joint-leaders Barcelona and Real Madrid in LaLiga and trail their city rivals 2-1 ahead of a home last 16 second leg in the Champions League. Overcome that deficit and they are set to face Berta’s new team in the quarter-finals.
Berta played his part in the club’s impressive business last summer, although by this point he was no longer the sole authority plotting the club’s ins and outs over a steak dinner with Simeone and club director general Angel Gil Marin. It was that modernisation of Atletico’s structure that made him want to move on after more than 11 years in the Spanish capital.
He will arrive in north London with recruitment the absolute top priority for a club that is inching towards five years since its last trophy, and has seen a third consecutive Premier League title challenge slip away – this time almost exclusively due to the lack of investment in forwards.
Diego Simeone and Andrea Berta (right) had an extremely close relationship at Atletico Madrid
It was Berta who managed to convince Simeone that he should stay at the club in 2016
Arsenal’s Premier League title charge has fallen flat as they struggle to fire in attack
Berta, 53, comes from a financial background. He worked in one of Italy’s largest banks, the Banca del Territorio Lombardo, but there was always a passion for football. He put together several amateur teams in Brescia where his talent caught the eye of local businessman Tommaso Ghirardi, who owned fourth-tier club Carpenedolo and took him there as sporting director.
When Ghirardi bought Parma in 2007, Berta followed, and he later moved to Genoa, all the time growing his reputation as a football-savvy, financially sound administrator.
In 2013 he met Atletico’s Gil through a mutual contact, the super agent Jorge Mendes. First, he advised Gil on potential signings from the Italian market, then in 2014 he became the club’s international scout before, in 2017, officially taking the role of sporting director.
Back in 2014 the team had just won LaLiga and wanted to build on that success with a first Champions League crown. They would reach two finals and lose them both in the next three seasons, but they won the Europa League in 2018 and that second league title of the Simeone era in 2021.
Berta was popular with players and close enough to coach Simeone to be a regular in the Atletico dressing room. He was in the thick of it, too, on the April 2022 night that the Spanish side’s Champions League game with Manchester City ended with a pushing and shoving match between various members of the staff of both clubs – and Berta can be seen landing a slap on the face of City doctor Max Sala.
That was a rare step into the limelight and an equally rare show of emotion. Simeone valued the calm, measured analysis Berta brought to most situations. When the intense Argentinian lost his second Champions League final to Real Madrid in 2016 and was close to walking away from the club, it was Berta that steered him back on course.
Simeone went three weeks without picking up the phone to anyone else in the club’s hierarchy but he did speak regularly to Berta. And it was Berta who helped him decide that Atletico could rebuild to go again.
Berta led the team’s recruitment but was not solely responsible for every signing
Judging Berta by the hits and misses of the transfer market will occasionally miss the subtleties of exactly who signs who at Atletico
Berta’s worth to Atletico is perhaps best assessed by Simeone’s evaluation of him and the generally upward trajectory the club took while he was there
Judging him according to Simeone’s evaluation of him and the generally upward trajectory the club took while he was there is perhaps the best way of assessing his worth.
Judging him by the hits and misses of the transfer market will occasionally miss the subtleties of exactly who signs who at Atletico. He was never the club’s version of Monchi – the famed sporting director who inspired Sevilla’s over-achievement and is now at Aston Villa.
Berta is often credited with the signing of Jan Oblak for only £13.4million (€16m) but the Slovenian goalkeeper’s arrival was not on his direct watch. He certainly can’t be blamed for the disastrous recruitment of Joao Felix for a club-record £106.5m (€127m) in 2019 because the deal was the result of Felix’s agent Mendes and his relationship with Gil.
And although Berta is criticised in Spain for the signing of the then 18-year-old Arthur Vermeeren for £16.7m from Royal Antwerp in January 2024 (Simeone started him only twice in La Liga, and took him off at half-time of his home league debut) the capture of the player who has since been sold to RB Leipzig was very much a team effort under the control of Carlos Bucero who had, in effect, been brought in over Berta to manage the club’s transfer policy.
It was in January 2024 that Bucero, a former agent who had worked closely with Mendes, joined the club. Atletico felt the wage bill needed to be brought under control and the squad needed trimming. Bucero was chosen to head up that operation and after an internal reorganisation Berta now answered to a new boss.
There was a genuine effort on all sides to make the reorganisation work but after years of making decisions over the dinner table with Simeone and Gil, Berta decided he would not renew his contract that was due to run out at the end of this season.
Being asked by Bucero to produce his best five options for a certain position was not the same as picking the target himself and when arguing it out with the coach he would invariably have his own preferred pick.
He left the club in January knowing that after more than a decade of success in Spain, there would be doors opened to him at another big club.
Berta was in the thick of it on the April 2022 night that Atletico’s Champions League game with Manchester City ended with a pushing and shoving match between the clubs’ staff
Berta was trusted enough by Atletico and Simeone to be a regular in the dressing room
(From left) William Saliba, Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Martinelli are all out of contract in two years
And at Arsenal, the recruitment process is hardly a straightforward task either – manager Mikel Arteta plays a pivotal role in transfers, while there is also input from above from executive vice-chair Tim Lewis and managing director Richard Garlick.
Berta replaces interim sporting director Jason Ayto, who saw the club through a tricky January transfer window which ended with them concluding there was no option available to supplant a decimated forward line – a choice that immediately proved costly when top scorer Kai Havertz was ruled out for the season. Ayto was previously No 2 to Edu, who left the club in November to take a role at Evangelos Marinakis’ stable of clubs, which includes Nottingham Forest.
Berta will walk into a daunting task at Arsenal and recruitment will be essential this summer, needing to deliver the world-class striker and winger that will end that five-year wait for a trophy and progression in the Champions League. They also have four key men – Bukayo Saka, Gabriel, William Saliba and Gabriel Martinelli – entering a crucial period with two years remaining on their contracts, while the club will have to secure improved terms for wonderkids Ethan Nwaneri and Myles Lewis-Skelly.
But fortunately for Berta, who has been taking English lessons, Arsenal have plenty in common with Atletico – he’ll be answering to a passionate, driven manager who wants to become the first to put a European Cup in the trophy cabinet.
