"The handles start as flat strips that are bent into shape and attached to the cup. Each trophy is unique, especially the handles. Things like that make our work different to other companies.”
After the final, it can get quite boisterous when a full squad, coaching staff, directors and guests celebrate. The trophy gets passed around, thrown into the air, and experiences the occasional mishap, so it needs to be tough. “It’s durable; it can take a reasonable beating. But it is silver, not steel. If you’re too rough with it, it will show. We’ve had clubs send us their cups to be repaired after they’ve been handled a bit too enthusiastically.”
Bertoni have been silversmiths extraordinaire since the early 1900s. Founded by Emilio Bertoni, they made a worldwide impact, literally and figuratively, in the early 1970s when artistic director Silvio Gazzaniga submitted his design for a new World Cup trophy and FIFA picked his golden creation. Valentina Losa, great-granddaughter of Emilio Bertoni, is at the helm today, and the family business means the world to her. “I used to visit my grandad Eugenio in the old base in Novate Milanese,” she says. “I was very close to him and my grandmother.”
Losa, a Milan fan, took over the company after her father Giorgio passed away in 2010. “Growing up, I wanted to do something else. My dad began to drop hints about me studying business management at university. But I studied architecture and design. Dad said, ‘Come and work here,’ but I worked for a couple of design companies. Unfortunately, my father suffered from poor health for many years, and it got worse. For the last three months of his life, he was in hospital and he left the company to me in his will. I took over at the start of 2011. It was a big change of plans for me. I never wanted to work in the industry, but I was very close to my father and took over because of my love for him. Plus, it didn’t feel right to give away this company that makes such wonderful things to someone else. If we’d been producing nuts and bolts, I might have sold up… but we make the Champions League and World Cup!”
Losa’s own children, particularly the second of her three daughters, love their mother’s line of work. “All my girls are very proud to tell their friends what I do. My second daughter is 15 and a huge Milan supporter. She goes to the stadium often. Who knows if she will start asking me questions about how we run the business? Perhaps there will be another generation here after me.”
What kind of bond do the team at Bertoni feel with the Champions League trophy? “It’s always a thrill when the finished product is ready to be sent out for the final,” says Losa. “When it leaves, it’s almost like sending a child to university. When you see the cup being prepared for departure, you get goosebumps. We have the trophy from when it’s a slab of metal and we put it together – witness its growth, you could say.”
Likewise, when they watch the winning captain lift it on television, it’s a wonderful emotion. Losa has two members of staff in the offices, and ten people downstairs getting their talented hands dirty on the shop floor. Although they reside close to Milan, there is one Juventus fan in their ranks, Francesco. Given the Turin team’s tortured relationship with the competition (they have lost a record seven finals), quips about a Juve supporter touching the Champions League trophy appear to be a regular occurrence and are taken in good spirit.
Every year, new methods emerge to make everything quicker and automated, but Losa fiercely protects tradition and quality. “It’s an honour to make it by hand. Each cup is a one-off and should always be a one-off. If it was made entirely by machine, it would lose a lot of its charm.”
This admirable sentiment can be problematic, however. “It gets harder each year finding people to work with us. We deliberately hire young people so they can learn here, because this isn’t a job you can learn at school or college. The only way to learn is to do the job.” It can be a dangerous process too, with some of the metals reaching a temperature of 960C. Like the heat of the battle on the pitch, things get toasty in Paderno Dugnano.
Fittingly for a company which spans generations, GDE are conscious of doing the right thing for the future. “Whatever metal we don’t use, we send to the foundries that supply us, and it’s recycled. That goes for brass, silver and gold. There is very little waste. And we have recently brought new machines that are more energy efficient. We use our water wisely, reusing as much as possible instead of buying more water. We do as much as we can to be sustainable.”
The friendly Losa and Iannetti are speaking to us in the upstairs showroom. We are surrounded by iconic objects. The dear old European Cup Winners’ Cup sits next to the 15kg Europa League, which is harder to move than a ten-man defence clinging on for victory. There are also cabinets stuffed with the miniatures of Ol’ Big Ears that crop up in photos of successful managers in their offices (famously, Bob Paisley and Carlo Ancelotti). But the main attraction will always be the Champions League trophy itself: won by skilful feet before an audience of 450 million, and fashioned by capable hands in a quiet industrial estate just outside Milan.
