Why Leicester have picked Enzo Maresca as their new head coach

On the face of it, the appointment of Enzo Maresca as the new Leicester City head coach seems a big risk.

In the aftermath of their relegation from the Premier League, there is a huge amount of work to be done to rebuild a squad that has lost £100million ($128m) worth of talent for nothing as players leave at the end of their contracts. Leicester are set to be stripped of their best assets in the summer transfer market, too, while a new style of football will have to be imprinted on the remaining players in a short space of time, with the Championship season kicking off on the first weekend in August.

The pressure is on Maresca to get Leicester back into the Premier League at the first attempt. The decisions of the board are being scrutinised by the fanbase for the first time following the shock of relegation — and so will this appointment.

There is a lot at stake.

It hardly feels like a job for somebody who has only taken charge of 14 senior games and was sacked six months into his only previous spell in charge of a team. On paper, a man with more experience was surely required.

But Maresca’s experience at Parma in his Italian homeland is just a small part of his story, one that could stand him in good stead as he takes the Leicester job. He also has experience from a 19-year playing career at top level and working as a coach since 2017 under some of the biggest names in management, starting at Ascoli.

He began his senior playing career at the less glamorous surrounds of The Hawthorns. Maresca emerged as an 18-year-old midfielder at West Bromwich Albion in the Championship after taking the bold step of leaving Italian club Cagliari to broaden his experience.

Seventeen months later, he swapped Albion, where he used to get lifts to training at Aston University’s playing fields in Walsall from future Brighton and Chelsea manager Graham Potter and played with Lee Hughes, Kevin Kilbane, James Quinn and Daryl Burgess, for being a team-mate of Zinedine Zidane, Alessandro Del Piero, Filippo Inzaghi, Edgar Davids, Antonio Conte, David Trezeguet, Lilian Thuram and Gianluigi Buffon at Juventus.

After his time in Turin and over spells at Bologna, Piacenza, Fiorentina, Spain’s Sevilla and Malaga and Olympiacos in Greece, he played under Carlo Ancelotti, Marcello Lippi, Juande Ramos, Zico and Manuel Pellegrini. It was the latter who convinced him to become a coach and made him part of his staff at West Ham United.

As a coach, he has also worked with Unai Emery at Sevilla, the club where he won five trophies as a player, including back-to-back UEFA Cups (today’s Europa League), and Pep Guardiola at Manchester City, helping them win a historic treble last season.

It is a remarkable CV and Maresca has had an incredible collection of experiences along the way. He has certainly served his apprenticeship under such highly regarded and decorated managers. Becoming the manager of Leicester at this time may be a big step up and a huge task, but the 43-year-old has never shied away from a challenge.

Born in Pontecagnano Faiano, just down the coast from Naples, he began playing aged 11 at AC Milan before joining Cagliari, helping them reach Serie A. Then he received an offer to fly to Birmingham for a trial at nearby West Brom.

It took guts to travel as a teenager from sunny Sardinia to slightly-less-sunny Sandwell, swapping the prospect of Serie A football for the brutality of the Championship. It will be a similar experience now, leaving Guardiola’s treble winners when they are on a huge high and taking on the equally large task that is rebuilding Leicester City.

It is more than bravery and willingness to embrace such a challenge that has convinced Leicester to give Maresca the opportunity.

Two of the biggest reasons they’ve appointed him are his proposed style of play and his reputation for working with young players — Leicester’s first-team squad could have a very youthful look come the end of the transfer window.

After his experiences as a coach with Pellegrini and Emery, he joined Manchester City in 2020 to manage their Elite Development Squad, winning the Premier League 2 title that season. His team unsurprisingly played a similar brand of football to Guardiola’s first team, preparing youngsters including Liam Delap and Cole Palmer for the step up.

That success led to his opportunity at Parma the next season, where he stuck to his principles of trying to develop young players in an attacking, fluid style of football.

Like Leicester now, Parma were looking for a quick return to the top flight. They had finished bottom of Serie A the season before, winning just three games. It was a big rebuilding job. He needed more time than 14 games, of which they won four and drew five, but the ruthless nature of Italian football meant he wasn’t given it.

Maresca tried to imprint the Manchester City formula on Parma, including signing central midfielder Adrian Bernabe from the City development squad as 15 new players arrived and had to be integrated.

However, some of the other players were not as adaptable to his methods and he was criticised for playing many out of their perceived best position. This stemmed from his belief that everyone on the pitch had to be able to adapt to other roles and be a more complete footballer, a philosophy Guardiola himself shares — as proven by long-time defender John Stones’ emergence this season as a central midfielder.

It was a young inexperienced side he was trying to nurture and inevitably the process was going to take more time — and he will need that, and patience, at Leicester because he will face similar issues.

Many of the Parma players were said to be disappointed by his sacking. They were enjoying his methods and style of play, especially the younger ones, despite the mixed results. His ability to speak four languages — French, English and Spanish as well as Italian — was also extremely useful in getting his message across to a multinational squad.

Maresca was philosophical about the experience. It is clear it only whetted his appetite to have another go as the number one somewhere, even though he then rejoined City and Guardiola as assistant manager and has enjoyed incredible success back at the Etihad Stadium.

“I was only starting my managerial adventure when it was ended,” he said at the time. “We were on the right track, the problem was that we had to try and construct a new team and that takes time. We needed to have the patience and strength to believe in something and over time I am certain we would have succeeded.”

The fact Maresca has had just one previous top job may actually be the reason his potential appointment was received relatively positively by the Leicester fans. He comes with no baggage, like other candidates may have done. He is seen as a fresh start, a new broom to sweep through the Seagrave training ground, bringing new ideas and a completely new approach. He will bring his own backroom team as well, once their work permit issues are resolved.

As well as the fans being excited, many players who might have been considering pushing for moves may now be intrigued enough to stay and see what the new guy brings to the table. They will certainly be excited if it is a similar style of play to Manchester City’s, but Maresca can’t make the mistake of expecting many of the players he’s inheriting to perform like Guardiola’s treble-winning superstars. He will have to lower his expectations a touch.

Leicester hope he can have a similar impact with them to the one his good friend Roberto De Zerbi had when he became Brighton & Hove Albion head coach last September. De Zerbi played with Maresca at the ages of 14 and 15 in Milan’s academy and they have remained close ever since.

De Zerbi’s top-level coaching career also got off to a rocky start back home at Palermo after spells down in Italy’s third and fourth divisions. Like Maresca at Parma, he was given just three months in charge at Palermo when he took over in 2016. De Zerbi lost seven games in a row, then was sacked.

Maresca is said to have stood out in the interview process with his positive message, attention to detail, knowledge of the current squad, enthusiasm and detailed explanation of how he would want his Leicester side to play.

His personality and charisma gave chairman Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha, who made the ultimate decision, and director of football Jon Rudkin the impression he was a number two destined to be a number one. He shares a similar methodology to Guardiola and aims to deliver a style of football he believes will inspire the players, staff and fans.

He may not have seemed the number one candidate at the start, when name after name was linked with being Brendan Rodgers’ permanent successor — although the delay in starting the interview process was due to Maresca’s involvement with a City campaign that only concluded with last weekend’s Champions League final — but he certainly was at the end. The deal to bring Maresca to the club was negotiated by John Morris of the Wasserman agency, who has looked after several deals for the club. Morris also looks after Jamie Vardy and several other Leicester players.

Although not an overriding factor, Maresca is also a cheaper option than many Leicester explored, demonstrating how much he wants the opportunity. After their huge expenditure under Rodgers, it is time for a dose of reality now the club are back in the second tier of English football.

Maresca was very keen on this opportunity and Guardiola didn’t stand in his way. He said his goodbyes to everyone at the Etihad Stadium via text message on Friday, they wished him luck. At the start, he may need some.

Leicester had other options, such as 42-year-old Scott Parker, who led Fulham and Bournemouth up from the Championship in 2020 and 2022 respectively, and Ipswich Town’s Kieran McKenna, 37, who has just signed a new contract following their promotion as League One runners-up. It is clear the club wanted to go down the younger-coach road.

We won’t know the fixtures until Thursday, but Maresca’s new dawn at Leicester is likely to have a tough start.

Until the transfer window closes on September 1, which is almost a full month into the season, he won’t know exactly how his squad will shape up because Leicester have so much trading to do. Getting his side playing in the manner he wants is going to take time and a lot of work. There will also need to be a lot of patience, from the stands as much as the boardroom.

He certainly didn’t get that in his only other crack at management with Parma, but Maresca will be hungry to prove this time that he can step out of Guardiola’s huge shadow.

(Top photo: Plumb Images/Leicester City FC via Getty Images)