Enzo Maresca Takes Charge at Manchester City

Enzo Maresca walked into Manchester City looking like a man back from holiday, not one about to inherit the most intimidating job in club football. Relaxed, tanned, and smiling, he chose to start somewhere else entirely.

“Before we start, I would like to send a message and a big hug to Kevin Keegan’s family for this moment,” he said, paying tribute to the former City manager after his death on Monday.

It was a warm touch, but also a reminder. Keegan was a showman and a fighter, the man who once went toe to toe with Sir Alex Ferguson from the Newcastle dugout. Maresca, now occupying the seat Pep Guardiola made his own for a decade, knows exactly whose shadow he is stepping into. So he went there too.

Naming the giants

Sat on the same dais where Guardiola held court for 10 mostly glittering years, Maresca did not pretend this was just another job. He referenced Ferguson and Arsène Wenger unprompted, as if to drag the comparison into the open before anyone else could.

“The history of the manager with many years in the same club always struggled a little bit. After Sir Alex, after Arsène,” he said. “But also, it’s a challenge to try to do the right things immediately for this organisation, for the fans, for everyone.”

How do you follow the man who delivered 20 trophies in 10 years and reshaped the Premier League in his image? Maresca’s answer, at least on day one, was to acknowledge the scale of it, then lean on the one thing City’s hierarchy value as much as silverware: stability.

He gestured to the giant “Welcome back Enzo” billboard behind him, a nod to his previous spell in charge of City’s elite development squad in 2020-21 and his season as Guardiola’s assistant during the 2022-23 treble. He knows goodwill at this club can be deep, but not bottomless. Not when results turn.

So he pointed upwards, to the men who hired him.

“This club has had three managers in 17 years,” he said. “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.”

That list tells its own story. Mancini, combustible and brilliant, dragged City into the elite but clashed with the hierarchy before his sacking in 2013. Pellegrini calmed the waters and kept the trophies coming. Guardiola turned the place into a machine. Khaldoon al-Mubarak and Ferran Soriano have lived every phase of that evolution.

They think Maresca can be the next act.

The making of City’s new man

What convinced them? They have seen him up close. They know his temperament. And they have watched his work.

Maresca took Leicester back to the Premier League as Championship winners, then walked into the chaos of Chelsea and imposed order. Fourth place in the Premier League. A Conference League title. A ruthless 3-0 dismantling of Paris Saint-Germain in the Fifa Club World Cup final last summer. That performance, on a global stage, felt like a manager staking a claim.

His departure from Chelsea on New Year’s Day was messy enough to require an apology from him and a £17m compensation cheque from City. That was the one subject that briefly closed him up.

“I feel quite lucky in terms of my former clubs – Leicester, Chelsea – I think we did a great job,” he said when asked about his conduct. “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.”

No more. No less. The shutters came down and stayed there.

Building a squad to win now

On the pitch, there was no coyness. Maresca talked openly about “titles” as the target for the coming season. City have not hired a caretaker; they have hired a man expected to keep the trophy parade rolling.

He will have help. Elliot Anderson has arrived from Nottingham Forest in a £116m deal to reinforce midfield, a bold fee that underlines how central that area remains to City’s identity. Lille’s Ayyoub Bouaddi, outstanding for Morocco at the World Cup, is a live option to add even more energy and control there.

Maresca has not forgotten the players who served him well at Chelsea either. He retains an interest in Malo Gusto, one of his former right-backs. If Omar Marmoush moves on, City will look for a similar, pacy forward to stretch defences and keep the attack as unpredictable as it was under Guardiola.

One player he cannot afford to lose is Rodri. Nobody at City needs reminding of that.

The Spain midfielder has just lifted the World Cup and taken home the Golden Ball, confirmation of what the club have long known: in a game that grows more frantic by the season, his ability to suffocate chaos is priceless. At 30, he now heads for back surgery on Monday. The expectation is that the problem is not too serious, but he will miss the opening weekend when City host Bournemouth.

The bigger question hangs over 1 September, when the transfer window shuts. Rodri has a year left on his deal and has so far declined to sign the new terms on the table. Real Madrid’s interest is no secret. City insist they want to keep him. The clock, and the market, will have their say.

Work begins in Asia

Before that decision-day drama, Maresca must get his new team moving. On Tuesday, he flies out with City for a pre-season tour of Asia that will set the tone for everything to come.

Inter await in Hong Kong. Then a K-League All Stars side and Atlético Madrid in Seoul. Not just fitness exercises, but early tests of structure, style and authority for a manager who preaches clarity.

“I’m working at the moment with many young players,” he 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.”

By then, City’s World Cup contingent who exited early – Josko Gvardiol, Mateo Kovacic, Abdukodir Khusanov and others – will be back in the fold. The Community Shield against Arsenal in Cardiff on Sunday 16 August will be the first real glimpse of what a Maresca City looks like when the stakes rise.

After that, the long audition to “successfully succeed” Guardiola, as impossible as that phrase sounds, truly begins.

A different kind of evolution

Maresca talks about football in the language of a modern coach, but without the jargon overload. He knows the game is shifting again.

“You need to adapt, evolve,” he said of his style. “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.”

Guardiola spent a decade turning solutions into an art form at City, answering questions opponents had not even thought to ask. Maresca does not have to be a copy. He cannot be. What he must do is convince a dressing room used to genius that his way can keep them at the summit.

City have bet that the man who once learned at Guardiola’s side is now ready to stand on his own. The banners say “Welcome back Enzo”.

The next few months will decide whether they end up reading something very different.