Athletico 100 years: Alberto Valentim, the waiter

When I hear the expression “refinements of cruelty”, an old cliché of old police journalism, the image that comes to mind is that of the lateral Alberto dominating the ball behind his back against the social perplexities of Couto Pereira.

In the aggregate score of those two Atletibas in the 1999 Copa Sul, the score was 6-1 for the Athletico. Given such dominance, Alberto didn’t need to have killed the ball with his mind, but he knew how to do it and he was sure that the people would like it, so he went there and did it. Kind of like Jimi Hendrix playing the guitar with his teeth. An artist’s thing and Alberto, as a full-back, is in that category.

The miner Alberto Valentim He arrived at Furacão in 1996. Skilled, fast and creative, with his boomerang cross, he stood out as a “waiter” for Paulo Rink and Oséas in the 1996 Brasileiro campaign. He went and returned to the club a few times until 1999, when he was sold to football Italian to play for Udinese. In 2008, he returned to end his career at Athletico and become champion of Paraná the following year.

It was at Athletico, in 2011, that he began his career as an assistant coach at Rubro-Negro itself. The world turned and 10 years later, when Paulo Autuori decided that he no longer wanted to be a coach in the final stretch of the 2021 calendar, Alberto took over Athletico with a schedule that scheduled, in particular, the semi-final of the Copa do Brasil, against Flamengo, and in the final of the South American Championship, against Red Bull Bragantino.

With the historic victory at Maracanã, they dispatched Urubu, but could not resist Galo Minas Gerais in the finals. Before that, however, he won the title of South American champion on a perfect afternoon in Montevideo and thus rose to the next level in red-black history as a champion coach and historic player.