Enzo Maresca Takes Charge at Manchester City: A New Era Begins
Enzo Maresca walked into Manchester City looking like a man back from holiday, not one about to inherit the most daunting job in modern club football. Relaxed. Tanned. And immediately aware of the room he had just entered.
“Before we start, I would like to send a message and a big hug to Kevin Keegan’s family for this moment,” he said, opening his first press conference as City manager with a nod to the past and to a man who once sat in a similar seat.
Keegan’s death on Monday has rippled through English football. At City he is remembered fondly; at Newcastle, for that title race and that famous clash with Sir Alex Ferguson. Maresca knows all of this. So when, a few minutes later, he referenced Ferguson and Arsène Wenger unprompted, it felt deliberate. A quiet admission that he understands exactly what he is stepping into.
Living with ghosts
How do you follow Pep Guardiola? How do you walk into the same room, sit in the same chair, and pretend the last decade did not happen?
You don’t. You confront it.
“The history of the manager with many years in the same club always struggled a little bit. After Sir Alex, after Arsène,” Maresca said. “But also, it’s a challenge to try to do the right things immediately for this organisation, for the fans, for everyone.”
Behind him, a giant “Welcome back Enzo” banner loomed, a reminder that this is not a complete stranger parachuted in from the outside. Maresca has already done a tour here. He led City’s elite development squad in 2020-21, then returned as Guardiola’s assistant for the 2022-23 treble season. He knows the corridors, the faces, the standards.
That buys him familiarity. It does not buy him time.
He knows that too, so he reached for one of City’s most powerful shields: stability at the very top. “This club has had three managers in 17 years,” he pointed out. “This is not normal, so this is one of the things that I’m confident we can do a great job and continue to do the job that has been done in the last years. Roberto [Mancini] was here, then Manuel [Pellegrini] and then Pep – for 10 years.”
Mancini brought a title and turbulence. Pellegrini brought calm. Guardiola brought an era. Khaldoon al-Mubarak and Ferran Soriano have lived through all three and decided Maresca is next in line. Not just for his football, but for his temperament.
The Chelsea question
For a moment, the shutters came down.
Maresca’s last job ended on New Year’s Day, his Chelsea exit accompanied by an apology and a £17m compensation cheque from City to the west London club. When his conduct there was raised, he moved quickly to close the door.
“I feel quite lucky in terms of my former clubs – Leicester, Chelsea – I think we did a great job,” he said. “In both clubs, the identity of the team was clear, the success of the team was clear, and I feel very lucky to be part of these clubs. But now we are here today. That is the most important thing, just about City. And nothing to add.”
He doesn’t need to sell his CV. Leicester were turned into Championship winners under his watch. Chelsea, chaotic and constantly under the microscope, finished fourth in the Premier League and lifted the Conference League. Then came a statement night: a 3-0 dismantling of Paris Saint-Germain in the Fifa Club World Cup final last summer. That performance, that authority on the biggest stage, did not go unnoticed in Manchester.
So when he spoke of “titles” as the target for his first season at City, it did not sound like bluster. It sounded like expectation.
Building the next version of City
To chase those trophies, Maresca already has a new piece for his midfield: Elliot Anderson, signed from Nottingham Forest for £116m, brought in to patrol the centre of the pitch. Lille’s Ayyoub Bouaddi, who caught the eye with Morocco at the World Cup, is another possible addition in that area.
He still likes what he knows. Malo Gusto, one of his right-backs at Chelsea, remains on his radar. If Omar Marmoush departs, City will move for a similar pacy forward to stretch games and keep the attack sharp.
One player he does not want to discuss in terms of departures is Rodri.
The Spaniard’s value to City has never been higher. On Sunday he lifted the World Cup with Spain and took home the Golden Ball as the tournament’s best player. In a domestic game that grows faster and more frantic every year, his ability to slow, shape and dictate matches is priceless.
Rodri, though, is 30 and heading for back surgery on Monday. The issue is described as not too serious, but it rules him out of City’s opening Premier League fixture at home to Bournemouth. The real tension lies elsewhere: he has a year left on his contract, has so far declined to sign the new deal on the table, and Real Madrid are watching.
The calendar provides a hard deadline. The transfer window closes on 1 September. By then, City will know whether their midfield cornerstone is staying or whether a gaping hole has opened in the heart of Maresca’s first team.
Asia, auditions and the countdown
Before that, the new manager must get to work with what he has. On Tuesday, City fly to Asia for a pre-season tour that includes games against Inter in Hong Kong and K-League All Stars and Atlético Madrid in Seoul.
“I’m working at the moment with many young players,” Maresca said. “That is always good because they are full of energy and some of them are very good. The last group of players are going to join three or four days before the Community Shield and we will have all the squad.”
Those young players will get minutes and a rare chance to impress. The established names will drip back in. Among them: Josko Gvardiol, Mateo Kovacic and Abdukodir Khusanov, all out of the World Cup early and now returning to club duty.
The real curtain-raiser comes at the Community Shield, against Arsenal in Cardiff on Sunday 16 August. That is when the comparisons with Guardiola will sharpen, when every tweak, every substitution, every set piece is measured against a decade of near-perfection.
Maresca knows that the game is changing and that he cannot simply copy and paste Guardiola’s blueprint. “You need to adapt, evolve,” he said. “Set pieces, man to man – it’s a little bit the direction where football is going. We managers, it’s our duty to find solutions.”
The solutions now have to come at the highest level, under the brightest lights, in the shadow of a giant. The question is no longer whether he understands the size of the job.
It is how quickly he can make this Manchester City side feel like his.
