Enzo Maresca – the pride and regret of Italian football

The appointment of Enzo Maresca as Manchester City coach has sparked mixed reactions in Italy. The newspaper "Gazzetta dello Sport" indicates that the former Chelsea coach is a source of both pride and regret for Italian football. Manchester City confirmed Maresca's appointment on Monday, with the Italian tactician replacing Pep Guardiola after a decade at the club.

Maresca, a former Juventus midfielder, achieved the pinnacles of both his playing and coaching careers abroad. Filippo Maria Ricci, a journalist from La Gazzetta dello Sport, analyzed his appointment in his latest column, highlighting what it means for Italian football. "It is the first source of national pride: an Italian coach being chosen to lead a wealthy and ambitious club like Manchester City is a huge achievement," Ricci wrote.

However, as Ricci points out, the process of Maresca's transition from Chelsea to Manchester City was not easy. "At the end of 2025, while Maresca was still under contract with Chelsea, Manchester City approached Guardiola and in December Maresca was contacted to say he was being considered as Guardiola's successor. The coach immediately informed Chelsea and resigned on New Year's Day."

Maresca achieved success with Chelsea, winning the Conference League and the Club World Cup. Previously, in the 2023-24 season, he secured promotion to the Premier League with Leicester City. "These successes were impressive despite the obvious problems at Chelsea, with an overextended squad, internal disagreements among the management and financially and contractually onerous player contracts," Ricci concluded.

Maresca never coached a Serie A club and was fired by Parma after just thirteen games in the 2021-22 season. Despite this, his achievements abroad are a source of pride for many Italian football fans, although there is also regret that he did not achieve it in his homeland.