Enzo Maresca will walk out of the shadows of Pep Guardiola, but to have worked with the master is no guarantee of success, as you have no experience from being the man himself.
To see Maresca appointed was a surprise, and few would have thought of this at all, so to see him being the chosen one for this massive mission came totally out of the blue.
Nigel Pearson, when joining Leicester the first time, with the mission clear, taking Leicester out of League One, had a similar background. He had previously been in different assistant manager jobs and had short term interim periods as manager, and just before taking the Leicester job, saved Southampton from relegation. His real breakthrough as a manager came at Leicester, guiding the club back to Championship and straight into the play-off’s.
Enzo Maresca did a grand job with Man City U.23 before getting his chance at Parma, but failed in his attempt to guide the club back to Serie A. He returned to Man City and became a key part of the set-up winning The Treble this season.
Kolo Toure left Leicester last season to take over at Wigan, getting his first real taste of a full management job, being a trusted assistant under Brendan Rodgers at Celtic and Leicester previously. He walked into a job at Wigan that was extremely challenging and lasted just two months, so the similarities to Enzo Maresca can be to both of these two.
The positives to take from this appointment is that Enzo Maresca joins from a positive period and can bring his confidence to a group that has experienced the straight opposite this season. That should not be underestimated, but still Claudio Ranieri turned things into miracles coming out of a dead mans coffin as head coach of Greece, being his last job before his time at Leicester.
To win is of course his mission, and hopefully a style of play, a level of understanding and down to earth approach will be made, so that the plan is suited to the environment of players and their skills and abilities.
What we did see at Man City this season was a monster of a football team, build up with ideas that few have seen in the past, but still hopefull that Maresca can bring on a few of the most important ideas of Pep, regarding belief, system drills and use of players.
If Maresca is able to bring that along with just a core group of players, building the backbone of a team that will be with little or few changes from game to game, then we will see if he is up to this game. Enzo Maresca so far has a mountain to climb and a massive challenge on his hands as we all are looking forward to see who his assistants will be and how he will build his team.
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