Rob Tanner is the Leicester City correspondent for The Athletic and was at 44 of Enzo Maresca’s 53 games in all competitions throughout the 2023-24 season — watching the other nine from afar.
He has interviewed Maresca one-on-one and has spoken with the Leicester manager at press conferences throughout the past 12 months…
There was a common theme when opposition managers reflected on having just faced Leicester City in the Championship last season: that they were very well coached.
Win, lose or draw, nearly every manager that pitted a side against Enzo Maresca’s Leicester came to a similar conclusion.
Following Leicester’s unforeseen relegation from the Premier League in 2022-23, the club’s owner Aiyawatt ‘Khun Top’ Srivaddhanaprabha wanted the team to go in a new direction with a modern style of play. Many supporters wanted an ambitious young manager who could bring a different identity to their failing team, arrest the slide and set them on a new path.
They all got what they wanted in Maresca.
As a coach, Maresca had forged a strong reputation — most notably his contribution to Manchester City’s treble success of 2023. But it was seen as a risk for a destabilised club to take a chance on a rookie manager when the stakes were so high, with the onus on getting straight back into the Premier League.
After all, Maresca had only 14 games experience as a number one. That was with Italian side Parma in 2021, a club then in a similar position to Leicester, having been relegated from the top division who were attempting to go back up at the first try. But Maresca was sacked after six months.
Chelsea fans might interpret their club’s interest in Maresca as a similar risk. The club have made an official approach to Leicester City over Maresca and hope to strike a deal for him to be their next head coach by the end of the week.
There will obviously be doubts and questions asked about Maresca by Chelsea fans. What can’t be questioned is how committed Maresca is to the job at hand and how hungry he is to succeed. Maresca is nothing if not meticulous. He could even be described as a workaholic.
Maresca celebrates lifting the Championship trophy with Leicester (Nathan Stirk/Getty Images)
After going from Pep Guardiola’s assistant at the English and European champions to stepping down to the Championship, Maresca did his homework. In fact, he watched every single game of Leicester’s relegation season — sometimes more than once — so he could see for himself what he was working with. His preparation for every game also consisted of hours of footage of the opposition, studying their approach.
Maresca is a tactical manager. Leicester did the usual physical preparation for last season but the emphasis was on the tactical approach, with double sessions on the grass at their Seagrave training base coupled with video analysis sessions inside.
During pre-season, the Italian lived at Seagrave — and not just because he had yet to find a local home but also to immerse himself in the club. But rather than spend the evenings out on the nine-hole golf course at the north Leicestershire base, he was watching footage of his new team on repeat.
Instead of flying Leicester to a remote training camp abroad, Maresca had the entire squad stay with him for a week of preparation, to work on his “idea” as he calls it.
“It is important that the training is not boring; that it’s always dynamic,” he told The Athletic in December. “It has to be new every day and the players have to be curious, they want to see and understand.
“When I played, sometimes we did the same things day after day, but we (players) always wanted to do something new. It’s always trying to learn something new to develop the players, regardless of their age.
“We used the videos a lot, but only for 50 minutes at a time. It is important that the players understand why you are asking them to do something, not just telling them what to do.”
As you can see in his Masterclass video for The Coaches’ Voice, Maresca would play out his tactics on a counterboard early in the mornings. He would identify the challenges created by a particular opponent and how his team could counter them, playing them out alone before presenting them to his staff and players.
Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall, one of the stars of Leicester’s promotion campaign, explained that Maresca’s methods took a bit of getting used to.
“I’ll be honest: for the first few weeks, players were openly saying they felt a bit stupid,” he told FourFourTwo in April.
“A lot of the things he was saying, the lads hadn’t seen before. The way he explained it made it look so simple and we were telling ourselves, ‘How did we not know this?’ We felt out of our depth! The more you do it, the more it feels second nature. That’s why the top teams are so good: they’re all on the same wavelength.”
If some of the fanbase were reticent, especially early on, towards the patient, possession-based style of play, the players all seemed to embrace it and enjoyed it. After all, what player doesn’t prefer to have the ball rather than chase it?
Dewsbury-Hall said things started to click for Leicester in October: “We played Swansea and they scored early on, but we didn’t change the way we played and won 3-1.
“We played some very good football and even had opposition players saying to us: ‘You’re one of the best sides we’ve played at this level.’ One: fair play, I respect somebody admitting that. And two: it shows that what we’re doing is working. I enjoy it. You’re free, you’re playing great football, you’re creating chances, and for me, it’s the best way to play.”
Leicester fans are familiar with it by now — a 4-3-3 that becomes a 4-5-1 out of possession but a 3-2-5 in possession — and for the majority of games this season, Leicester have bossed the ball.
One of the full-backs, and typically off the right flank — usually Ricardo Pereira, sometimes Hamza Choudhury — moves inside to become a midfield two in front of a back three (four if you include roving goalkeeper Mads Hermansen), while the two attacking midfield No 8s move high into a jagged attacking line of five.
When it worked to perfection, it brought 31 league victories, the highest in the last 10 years in the Championship, and had fans chanting: “Straight back up I pray, playing the Enzo way.”
When teams were able to sit deep and frustrate Leicester, the atmosphere could change among the supporters — and certainly among older fans used to a more direct style of football. Patience is required.
Could his style work in the Premier League? Well, Leicester certainly held their own at Anfield against Liverpool in the Carabao Cup (1-3) and at Stamford Bridge in the FA Cup, having beaten Bournemouth away in the previous round. Chelsea will have had a good look at Maresca’s Leicester that day when the visitors came from 2-0 down to threaten an upset before two late goals sent Chelsea through. But they were given a scare.
There is no doubt that Maresca could handle coaching a group of the calibre of Chelsea’s squad and he would deal with any issues and egos with ruthlessness. He would quickly make decisions on who would and wouldn’t be with him on his new journey. He is a strong character.
Maresca is friendly and jovial with his squad and has an open-door policy for players needing to share issues, on and off the pitch. But none of them have been left in any doubt about what he expects.
“What I don’t like and I don’t negotiate over is bad behaviour or lack of respect towards me, my staff or team-mates,” he told The Athletic. “But I like to be open. I like to speak with the players about general things. Anything they need. No problem.”
He has publicly spoken of his frustrations at Leicester with the financial worries over profit and sustainability rules (PSR), the possibility of a points deduction and the lack of strengthening he felt was vital in the January transfer window. He doesn’t hold back when expressing himself — whether that is to the hierarchy or in the press.
However, he can be sensitive and will need to grow a thick skin, as the media scrutiny is far more intense in the Premier League, particularly if he were to move to a club with the status of Chelsea. In the Championship with Leicester, there were often more club media staff in the press room than journalists.
The Italian enjoys a joke when the cameras and tape recorders are switched off too. He would often jump into a player’s radio interview and share a side of him that the players were used to from the training ground. He was always full of affection towards his children whenever they appeared in the mixed zone, switching instantly from football-obsessive manager to caring and playful dad.
Maresca salutes the fans with his daughter (Copa/Getty Images)
In the Premier League, he will know exactly how he wants to prepare his team for matches and he is committed to his philosophy. In January, after another 3-1 win over Swansea in January, this time at home, he threatened to quit if he felt anyone was questioning his idea after he heard some groans in the crowd as Leicester had to be patient to break the visitors down.
He won’t change his approach. He does have subtle variations, but there will also be one main striker, one holding midfielder with a full-back playing inside and two wingers. It is his way and he believes in it wholly.
Maresca might not be the manager with a big reputation and long distinguished record that some Chelsea fans want, but he knows who he is and how he wants to go about things. It might feel like a step into the unknown, but Chelsea fans can know exactly what they would get from Maresca and his team.
After all the recent failures of big-name managers at Chelsea, it might be time for something different.
(Top photo: Clive Mason/Getty Images)
