Enzo Maresca’s opportunity at Leicester

The career of Enzo Maresca can be summed up in seven photos that have marked its history. He who made his football debut with the West Bromwich Albion shirt in 1998, he who scored his first goal in Serie A, with the Juventus shirt in the Turin derby on 24 February 2002 and exulted by mimicking the horns of a bull, he who lifts the UEFA Cup in the 2005-2006 season (the first of the two he will win with Sevilla) after scoring a brace against Middlesbrough in the final, he celebrating winning the English under-23 title as Manchester City youth coach in 2021, he who leaves the Tardini of Parma for the last time, before being sacked, after a 1-1 draw with Cosenza on November 21 of the same year, he in Istanbul, enjoying the Champions League victory together with Pep Guardiola, he smiling, holding the Leicester shirt with his name and number 2026 written on it.

Enzo Maresca is the new coach of the Foxes, the first Italian since Ranieri, and will have the task of bringing them back to the Premier League following their relegation this season. On its official Instagram profile, the English team has chosen to announce it with a somewhat shaky sentence in Italian. In fact, the post read, before the correction “The new fox is in command”. Then someone pointed out to him that Maresca had been appointed coach and not field marshal and so they changed him.

His story is that of a good player who is slowly becoming a mature coach.

In its growth path there is obviously a main reference: that Guardhouse who has chosen, like Socrates, to admit only a select few to his school: him, Mikel Arteta of Arsenal and the unorthodox Brighton coach Roberto De Zerbi, who follows guard duty without ever having collaborated with the Catalan coach. All fanatics of the beautiful game, of tight phrasing, of dynamism, of starting from the bottom up. All obsessed not so much with the result, but with performance, in a world that instead would expect the exact opposite. Guardiolists are a small circle of innovators at all costs, who often come to terms with the extremism of their tactical ideas and with the inability to set them aside when pragmatism is needed. Their leader is no exception: Pep who is the only one in the world to have scored the treble twice with two different teams, but who waited twelve years before winning a Champions League again.

Enzo Maresca now has the opportunity to show what he’s worth after disappointing in his only experience as head coach in a non-youth team: things didn’t go well in Parma and practically nothing was seen of the tactical avant-garde he is pursuing.

Now, in a different context, where once again he will be able to fight for promotion, the coach from Pontecagnano will have to demonstrate, above all to himself, that he is ready to walk alone.

Being an Italian manager in Leicester is not easy: the comparison with Sir Claudio will be inevitable, but the opposite of the rest would be strange. What Maresca can do though, is prove he’s an intelligent manager, one who can bring the 2016 English champions back to the top flight.

Only two teams that have won the Premier League since 1992, the year of its reform, are then relegated. Blackburn and Leicester will meet in the 2023-2024 Championship to try to do battle and kill each other’s hopes.

Could Maresca be the right man? He certainly has his personal history and the journey he has made from him. Sure, the Thai ownership of the club didn’t bet on an already established coach, but Burnley also relied on Vincent Kompany this year and won the championship.

In short, the football of ideas also foresees that we pass from intermediate moments: if Maresca manages to bring Leicester out of purgatory, then he will finally be able, at 44 years of age (he will turn them in 2024) to take off.

When De Zerbi arrived at Brighton last September, Graeme Souness, legend of Scottish football who also moved from Sampdoria between 1984 and 1986 asked himself “but who is this?”. Today he is considered perhaps the best manager in the Premier League, at least according to Guardiola, after he managed to get the Seagulls qualified for the Europa League for the first time in history. This nouvelle vague of Italian coaches seems destined to do well.

If Maresca, a good level player, a budding coach, a follower of guard duty, manages to get the gears spinning well, we could say that he has brought another talent across the Channel, which here, due to a series of contingencies, has not been exploited. Neither as a footballer nor as a coach.