‘The trophy is my friend’

Every job has its ups and downs. Some tasks you enjoy more than others. But when one of the perks is taking care of the Champions League trophy, the upside tends to outweigh everything else. Particularly if you also happen to support a team that regularly wins it.

Patrick Vonnez has worked in logistics at UEFA since 1995. For most of the year, he is checking in with suppliers, monitoring stock and making sure deliveries arrive on time. But when the competition finals come round each season, he has one additional role to fulfil – getting Ol’ Big Ears to the stadium and in place for the UEFA president to present to the winning captain.

Add in various draws, sponsorship events and photo shoots where the trophy – and Vonnez – are required, and the 53-year-old Swiss will have spent more time in its company than serial winners such as Sergio Ramos, Pep Guardiola, the Maldinis and Carlo Ancelotti combined. He even keeps the prestigious prize in his hotel room the night before the final. “It’s become a friend,” he jokes.

You may have seen Vonnez before. If not, look out for him on 1 June. He will be the man standing behind UEFA president Aleksander Čeferin on the podium at Wembley, passing him the medals to put around the players’ necks. It will be Vonnez’s 25th straight final, impressive longevity, yet time flies when you’re having fun.

Patrick Vonnez after the UEFA Champions League Final in 2022UEFA via Getty Images

His first final was in 2000, when Real Madrid beat Valencia 3-0 at the Stade de France. Those were simpler times; no engraving the winners’ name on the trophy at the final whistle, fewer television demands, no ambassadors to usher into position on the podium. “Once the stage was ready, I just brought the trophy out and prepared my trays with the medals on the table,” Vonnez says. “I stayed a bit to the side and, when the ceremony was over, I took all my belongings and went back to the dressing rooms.”

All very matter of fact, low key, but as Patrick points out, “It’s my job. You just make sure you don’t mess up. Sometimes the grass is wet. The trophy is quite heavy. Both hands are occupied; you have to carry the trophy and trays with 40 medals for each side. Sometimes you also have awards, like for the best player. You have to make sure you don’t fall on the pitch!

“Nowadays, the ambassador brings the trophy out. Last year in Istanbul, [Hamit Altıntop] put it the wrong way round, with the logo facing the back. I’m behind the president and I saw that, so I quickly turned the trophy the right way. Just making sure that everything is correct.”

Small details count. The pressure is on the engraver to spell the winning team correctly in the moments after full time, yet here Patrick lets us in on a secret.

“We always need two trophies because the ceremony is right after the final whistle. It’s maybe seven or eight minutes to build the stage, while the engraver takes between 10 and 15 minutes depending on the length of the winners’ name.

“I give TV two minutes to go live and show the engraving on the giant screen. The trophy the players lift is our original, then after the engraver has finished, we swap the trophies about an hour or so after the final whistle in the dressing rooms.”

It’s no easy task getting the original back. “At the 2010 final in Madrid, it took a long time to swap the trophies because the Inter players wanted to keep the original. I was waiting in the dressing room with the replica, saying, ‘I need the trophy. You can take this one,’ but they said they were waiting for the coach, José Mourinho, who was in a press conference. It took at least two and a half hours to receive the original back.”

Talk about being a fly on the wall. “I hide myself when I’m waiting in the dressing room because I’m UEFA staff and I’m just doing my job, but if you like football and some of these players then, of course, it’s something special. I remember 2015 with Barcelona and going to the dressing room and being not far from Lionel Messi.

“I had the privilege of seeing him a couple of times. Also, in the 2006 final, he couldn’t play in Paris because of injury. They won, but he was so sad because he couldn’t play. Seeing one of the greatest, if not the greatest, players of all time is special. But when you are handing out the medals, you don’t really see them because you’re so focused on doing your job.”

One moment, however, does stick clearly in the memory. It was the 2019 final when a beaming, victorious Liverpool manager Jürgen Klopp, mistaking Vonnez for one of the dignitaries, went to shake his hand. “But I couldn’t do it,” Vonnez says, “because I was holding the medals. We did a fist bump instead.” There is a large picture of the scene above Vonnez’s desk at UEFA HQ. For a Liverpool fan, it doesn’t get much better than that.

This article originally appeared in Champions Journal magazine. See more stories like this at champions-journal.com