It was on June 4 last year when Enzo Maresca’s dream of building a football team with Leicester City first took shape.
Maresca was part of Pep Guardiola’s coaching team at Manchester City, preparing for the Champions League final, while Leicester had just been relegated and faced an uncertain future.
The location was Knightsbridge, in the apartment of Leicester chairman Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha, and Maresca remembers the meeting vividly.
“One of the first things the chairman said was that he was looking for a different playing style,” he says.
Less than two weeks later, Maresca was appointed head coach, the rebuild was in full swing and the transformation since then has been remarkable.
Leicester sit at the top of the Championship, 12 points ahead of their nearest rivals Leeds, and a quick return to the Premier League seems inevitable.
Maresca has introduced an exciting football brand that captures the imagination, reinvigorates players and energizes a fanbase disillusioned after relegation.
Maresca is building a great reputation with his vision of total game domination, inverted wing-backs and overloads, where small details are key.
“Getting promoted is the main goal, but we have already done a lot of important things that form the basis for the future,” he says, sitting in an interview room at Leicester’s vast training ground.
“When I came here, the synergy between the fans and the team was not perfect, because of relegation and many other reasons before I came here.
“The main goal is to feel like we are building and improving something for the next two to three years.”
This is a rare opportunity to enter Maresca’s world, and over the course of 40 minutes he provides a fascinating insight into what he calls “the idea”.
To fully appreciate the Italian’s impact, Leicester’s season to date must be put into context: their 78 points in mid-February would have already secured a play-off place in the last six seasons in the Championship.
They have the best offensive and defensive performances in the division [68 goals scored and 24 conceded]. The 2-0 win over Sheffield Wednesday on Tuesday evening was the 25th win from 32 games.
With fourteen games left to play, Leicester need just 28 points to equal Reading’s record total of 106 in the 2005-06 season, of which 42 are still available.
“All the stats are good during the season, but they can become great when you reach the end goal. Unfortunately, we still need some wins,” he says with a smile.
“The trajectory and path is good and we have been first in 26 of the 32 games. That shows the mentality of the players.
“Southampton and Leeds are doing fantastic. I’m sure Ipswich will fight to the end too.
“We are still here. The difference between us, Southampton and Leeds in the last 25 games is not much.”
‘We are far from what we can be’
Perhaps wrongly, many of Leicester’s rivals feel that promotion must be the absolute minimum.
It is said that with parachute payments, a huge wage bill and one of the best sides to ever play in the division, anything short of a top six finish would be a failure.
These theories only detract from Maresca’s achievements so far, as the rebuild could easily have gone wrong.
After relegation, Leicester sold their best players in James Maddison and Harvey Barnes. Regular customers such as Youri Tielemans, Jonny Evans and Timothy Castagne also left.
Maresca’s new playing style was a gamble in such a crazy division, but he has exceeded all expectations.
“It’s not easy at all. We don’t have that feeling. If you analyze the changes compared to last season, there have been a lot,” he says.
“Key players left last year and we are playing with players who have played more minutes than in the last two seasons.
“We are nowhere near what we can be. We are happy with the way we are playing, but there are many things we can do better.
“Next year we will be even better if we can keep the same team.”
Maresca’s players are flourishing. Mads Hermansen, the goalkeeper and midfielder Harry Winks have proven to be crucial summer signings.
Jamie Vardy, 37 last month, is the top scorer, while defender Jannik Vestergaard’s revival is one of the stories of the season.
Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall was also excellent with ten league goals and twelve assists. When Brighton held discussions about a possible deal to sign the midfielder in January, the response was emphatic.
“Kiernan came to me when there was a lot of fuss about him and told me he had no intention of leaving the club,” says Maresca.
“He said he had a duty to get Leicester promoted. He feels responsible for last season and wants to get the club back to the Premier League.
“All the other players are the same. Pride is important and they want to be back where they have been for so many years. I love getting that dedication from them.”
Maresca is completely committed to his philosophy and will never waver. He regularly listens to Italian musician Pino Daniele, known for a surprising Balearic hit ‘Yes I Know My Way’.
“It’s easy to analyze what we do… there’s so much information.”
The title could summarize Maresca’s approach to management, where long days and frequent meetings are the norm.
Trainings and team meetings are carefully planned. One aspect of Maresca’s coaching that has surprised some players is the way he insists on every pass being delivered on the right foot, as this saves precious seconds in games.
He estimates that 90 percent of Leicester’s games were played with three players at the back, with Winks as the midfielder and Ricardo Pereira – normally a full-back – switching inside to participate as a pair.
“Unfortunately I can’t stop thinking about football, and I have four children! I love football and I feel it is my duty to provide solutions to players,” said Maresca.
“Management is so demanding these days. If you want to do the right things, you have to spend hours and hours doing it.
“It’s so easy to analyze what we do: there is so much information, statistics and figures available. You can clearly see what a team is doing, so you have to find new things.”
Maresca is very proud of the way his team is performing and at one point in the interview we look at the 54-pass goal against Rotherham in December.
Every Leicester player touches the ball, before Chelsea loanee Cesare Casadei makes the final contribution with a simple header.
What is striking is the calm and patience in the build-up, with the Leicester players behaving like sharks preparing to attack their prey.
Maresca stops the video highlighting how Rotherham are tiring and a player marking Winks releases Dennis Praet as the overload. “We have to find the right time, and it is coming.”
Another of his favorite goals was Pereira’s goal in Watford on February 10. He also reveals that Faes’ long diagonal pass to Dewsbury-Hall against Wednesday, which ended in a Vardy goal, was the 25th time this season.
‘Pep called me to ask everything about Huddersfield’
With Leicester adopting a possession-based style of play, there is some audible frustration from a minority of fans at home games. Maresca sees it as part of the process.
“I understand that the fans go to the stadium and they want to see the team play a certain way. They want to ‘attack, attack, attack’, but it is impossible,” he says.
“The problem is that some people think that if we keep the ball, sometimes we don’t progress, but you can’t do that for 95 minutes.
“Sometimes we use the ball to defend, or we recover our energy to continue. This is what some people find difficult to see or understand.
“I was at Manchester City a few weeks ago and the fans said the same thing to Pep. It’s normal.”
Guardiola undoubtedly remains a major influence on Maresca, and they still speak regularly.
He remembers facing Guardiola’s Barcelona teams when he was a Sevilla player, an experience he says made him see the game “with different eyes”.
Maresca then worked under the Catalan master at City, and believes he spent two years there [in two separate spells] were a gift.
“Pep is such a hard worker, it’s unbelievable. He thinks about football for almost 24 hours and looks for solutions,” says Maresca.
“When Man City played Huddersfield in the FA Cup in January, he called me to ask all about how they were playing. How they attacked and defended.
“This is the manager of Man City who has won everything, considered the best in the world, and has taken over all the information about Huddersfield. It’s always the little details.”
Manuel Pellegrini, former city manager, is another key figure in Maresca’s coaching journey.
“He was my manager for two years [at Malaga] and I worked with him at West Ham. We know each other very well and when I was 28 he told me that when I’m done as a player, I should think about becoming a manager.
“I always say he is my professional father! If I have any doubts or need suggestions, I contact him.”
Maresca is preparing for the visit of Middlesbrough – one of only four teams to beat Leicester this season – and still believes there is hard work to be done.
However, it seems increasingly likely that Leicester will “go straight back up and play football the Enzo way”.