Guerrino Giorgi, who oversees Champions League trophy’s construction, holds a replica at the G.D.E. Bertoni factory in Italy on May 16.CALOGERO RUSSO/The New York Times
Even from a distance, the figure is unmistakable: the bulbous midsection. The tapered neck. The glistening veneer. And those handles – oh, those handles! – could belong to no one else.
No one but Ol' Big Ears.
While Saturday's European Champions League final between Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid will feature megastars such as Cristiano Ronaldo and Gareth Bale playing in Milan's historic San Siro stadium, the most enduring figure in club soccer's biggest game actually could be the one made of metal and hailing from here, just outside the city centre, on a nondescript street choked with industrial warehouses.
Freakishly oversized and with handles that appear to have been pinched from Bigfoot's coffee mug, the Coupe des Clubs Champions Européens (that is how the trophy is inscribed) has both a whimsical nickname and a girth that stretches wider than those of most of the players who hope to lift it.
Just last week, Valentina Losa, the chief executive of GDE Bertoni, which makes the trophy, was entertaining several visitors in a conference room at her company's factory. Suddenly, an outside vendor who had just finished making a delivery poked his head in to say goodbye. When he saw there were hundreds of trophies lining the walls, all manufactured by Bertoni, he could not resist stepping in to look around.
But the vendor did not focus on the tennis trophies or the Olympic medals or even the replica of the FIFA World Cup trophy, whose twisted golden ball is world renowned. Instead he asked, "Can I?" and nodded toward the silver Champions League trophy. Losa smiled, and the vendor hoisted it in the air, grunting at its heft and grinning at its shine.
"This happens a lot," Losa said after the vendor – who requested multiple cellphone photos – finally departed. "It's the most common request by far."
The trophy itself is about 29 inches tall and weighs roughly 16 1/2 pounds, making it one of the more obese prizes in sports. (The NFL's Lombardi trophy, by comparison, weighs only seven pounds). The Champions League trophy also has a complex history – much like the tournament itself, which has had a few iterations – but the current version has become as well embedded in the competition as the event's ubiquitous (and hyperoperatic) anthem.
The trophy was originally produced by a Swiss designer in 1967, replacing a smaller version from the tournament's early days. The following year, European soccer's governing body, UEFA, made a rule that any club that won the tournament five times, or three years in a row, would be allowed to keep the trophy and, since then, Real Madrid, Liverpool, Bayern Munich, Ajax, A.C. Milan and Barcelona have claimed so-called originals.
GDE Bertoni first began manufacturing the trophy more than four decades ago, Losa said, which was back when her father and grandfather were running the business. The company initially had a more varied production line, creating items as varied as art medals and sculptures, but it began to gain acclaim in the sports world in 1960 when it won the contract to create the medals given out at the Summer Olympics in Rome. Ten years later, after Brazil won the World Cup for the third time – claiming that trophy as its own – and FIFA needed to have a new trophy designed, Bertoni won out over more than 50 companies and delivered a trophy that was awarded for the first time in 1974 in Germany.
"From then on, football was a very big part of our business," Losa said.
That much is clear just walking through the factory. Medals and trophies are scattered among the large vats of chemicals and welding machinery. In one corner, the 2017 Confederations Cup trophy rested on a shelf ("We need to send that to FIFA next week," Losa said) while medals for an upcoming youth World Cup were being finished across the room. At a desk, a worker looked over e-mailed feedback from FIFA regarding a different potential medal design.
Plenty of other products are produced at the factory, too. Among the awards sitting on various shelves at the factory were the 1994 Asian junior volleyball championship trophy (played in Manila, won by China); brass buttons for the blazers worn by the Italian Golf Federation; and badges designed for the uniforms worn by Italy's prison guards.
Middle Eastern countries, too, are a source of sustained (if wide-ranging) business. Several Bertoni workers were recently touching up a series of ornate plates commissioned by the government of Oman and meant to highlight tourist attractions in the tiny country. Bertoni also has a contract with the royal court of Bahrain to produce its military medals, and the company receives a steady stream of requests for trophies from the Gulf states. One of the stranger orders, Losa recalled, came from the Qatari Embassy, which wanted a new trophy for the Gulf Cup of Nations and wanted it to resemble the World Cup trophy, yet be heavier and made from white gold.
"The Qatar Olympic Committee also commissioned that one," Losa said, nodding toward a trophy that was, essentially, a large cast-metal bird.
Work from UEFA, however, is steady. Bertoni produces trophies and medals for a variety of youth and women's competitions, but its centrepiece project starts every fall, generally in September or October, when construction of the next Champions League trophy begins. The original version of that design – made in silver – is kept by UEFA regardless of who wins the competition, but Bertoni produces a brass replica each year that is paraded around for fans to see and then awarded to the winning club after the final.
There are two particularly tricky parts of the construction. Luigi Scacchi, Bertoni's head of production, said placing the letters on the Champions League trophy so that they are perfectly in line is difficult because of the metal's curve, while Guerrino Giorgi, a veteran craftsman who typically oversees the building of the trophy, said that it could take more than two weeks to make the handles. "It is the hardest part," he said.
Of course, the giant handles are also what distinguish the Champions League trophy. In addition to its English nickname, the trophy is known in Spanish as La Orejona (orejas are ears) and in French as La Coupe aux Grandes Oreilles (literally, the cup with big ears), leaving no doubt about its identity. The look of the trophy is not especially attractive – even the original designer once conceded that it might be a bit ostentatious – yet there is no denying its place in the game.
"For me? I like the Europa League one better," Losa said, referring to the trophy for Europe's second-tier competition, also made by Bertoni and more resembling a traditional cup.
"But then again," she continued, "no one ever comes in and asks for a picture with that one."