Chelsea vs Man Metropolis: Enzo Maresca’s reunion with grandmaster Pep Guardiola is a narrative of soccer and chess

Enzo Maresca’s first aggressive match managing Chelsea will pit him towards Pep Guardiola and his champion Manchester Metropolis group. For Maresca, will probably be a big second. An opportunity to check himself in a footballing chess-match towards the perfect.

Maresca could have described one other Manchester Metropolis boss Manuel Pellegrini as “like a father” to him however it’s Guardiola whom he most admires. He nonetheless recollects their first dialog when Guardiola was teaching Barcelona and he was a participant for Malaga.

The pair linked over their recollections of Carlo Mazzone, the charismatic Italian coach who had been answerable for Cagliari when Maresca was a younger prospect there. He would later coach Brescia throughout Guardiola’s stint in Italy in direction of the top of his enjoying days.

After they met, Guardiola was already the pre-eminent coach of his era however Maresca’s personal concepts about soccer had been nonetheless formulating. He has since revealed that he studied Guardiola throughout this era – alongside a rising fascination with chess.

Thesis on soccer and chess

Maresca had been taking chess classes for 4 years when he selected it as the topic of his thesis in finishing his teaching badges at Coverciano, the esteemed Italian ending faculty. He admitted that he solely got interested as soon as he needed to teach.

At over 7,000 phrases, it’s an in-depth exploration of the similarities between the 2 video games. He compares opening concept in chess to constructing from the again in soccer, discusses the battle for management of the centre, and the significance of high quality within the endgame.

Guardiola is referenced not directly, when Maresca refers to his mentor Johan Cruyff as having been a footballing-chess participant, and immediately when he quotes him on the significance of controlling that centre. Management the midfield and management the match, he explains.

Maresca goes on to debate how that may be finished in varied methods – this can be a thesis. And when he writes of how the positional recreation generally requires conserving a central piece in the identical spot to realize a bonus relatively than danger transferring it, that feels pure Guardiola.

A few of it appears sensible. Maresca highlights the significance, in soccer and in chess, of attempting to create numerical superiorities or one-on-ones in sure areas of the pitch. Final season, it was two Leicester gamers who topped the charts for many one-on-ones.

At different occasions, it’s extra about Maresca’s thought-process than any tactic. “I came to the conclusion that playing chess can train the mind of a coach,” he writes, claiming that it develops the prefrontal cortex of the mind, chargeable for planning and anticipation.

Certainly, a part of his fascination stems from the thought that research may assist him to anticipate what’s coming subsequent. “The fundamental element of chess is the logic that leads a player to understand and thus predict the moves of the opponents,” he argues.

That’s attention-grabbing as a result of that is just about how Tommy Doyle, the previous Manchester Metropolis midfielder, describes the expertise of enjoying for Maresca. “He gave brilliant advice. What Enzo told us to do and how the games panned out was everything that he said.”

Remodeling Metropolis’s children

Maresca reworked Metropolis’s improvement facet and previous to Leicester’s Championship title win he described the achievement of successful Premier League 2 with them because the proudest of his profession. It was an accomplishment as a result of he modified the mentality.

“It was not based on winning, it was about playing nice football.” That was Doyle’s tackle what got here earlier than. As James McAtee put it: “When Enzo came in, he said, ‘we want to make history and win the league’. And we went and did it. Training got more intense.”

Maresca approached the duty with the angle of a head coach relatively than somebody working in improvement. It’s a delicate stability as a result of academy graduates have to be nurtured however this isn’t youth soccer they usually have to be ready for the following step too.

Ceri Bowley helped devise the methodology at Metropolis Soccer Group and remembers properly the impression that Maresca had on these younger gamers. Guardiola had earmarked him as a possible assistant already however that position was a check of what he might do. He handed it.

“When that job came up,” Bowley tells Sky Sports activities, “they wanted to give him that experience of being involved in the group, to understand it, to see up close whether he was the right fit for the environment, the way that he wants to work and sees the game.

“They had been excellent that yr and received the league fairly convincingly. He had an excellent group, don’t get me fallacious, however you could possibly simply see by the best way that the group performed and the way they kicked on from the years earlier, the impression that he had on it.”

When Maresca left to take the Parma job, Brian Barry-Murphy was tasked with changing him at Metropolis. Now, as then, he’s open about it being a frightening act to observe. “The performances and results were incredible that season,” Barry-Murphy tells Sky Sports activities.

“Previously they had been seen as an academy team and one that was still part of that academy. Enzo separated that team. He wanted those players to start to understand what it was like to be a senior professional and a prospective first-team player.”

Barry-Murphy arrived to search out the mentality reworked. “When I got there, the players were insanely competitive and obsessed with improving to win. They had won their first trophy, the acclaim they were getting was the same as a first-team player starting out.”

Returning as Guardiola’s assistant

Because of this, when that chance at Parma didn’t work out and Guardiola’s assistant Juanma Lillo’s departure for Qatar opened up a first-team emptiness, it was no shock that Maresca was provided a route again to Metropolis, this time working with the seniors.

Guardiola has described the work finished with that improvement squad as “extraordinary” and whereas Lillo had been a mentor to him, Maresca was completely different. “I feel it like I felt it when I saw Mikel Arteta.” In his view, the potential to be an elite supervisor was clear.

“He is a really humble guy, if he wasn’t then Pep would not have had him,” says Bowley. “I was always impressed. He has a very clear identity of how he wants his team to play and is very good in how he communicates that to players. Really clear, really simple.”

His season by Guardiola’s facet turned essentially the most profitable in Metropolis’s historical past as they received the treble. Coincidence? Maybe not. Maresca performed his half. “It was significant for me that he was so active and so involved in the coaching,” says Barry-Murphy.

“Pep is such a dominant figure because he is so good and commands everyone’s respect, so it can be easy to stay in the background and not be super-active. But Enzo coached from day one and you could see the respect players had for him was instant.”

“We all see the tactical outcomes of the innovation for which Pep receives acclaim. But people do not see the technical work that goes into it to give the players the confidence that it will work. They work on that every day and that is why the level is so high.

“Enzo was concerned with that and helped the gamers to enhance these technical actions and ideas. He can be concerned in every part. He can be teaching all of the gamers at completely different occasions and, the identical as Pep, it’s not segmented, it is rather group centered.”

Implementing concepts at Leicester

Maresca’s affiliation with Metropolis’s success persuaded Leicester to nominate him as their new head coach final summer time and he left once more, seizing the possibility to indicate that most of the concepts that he had labored on with the champions might work within the Championship.

In his absence, Metropolis retained their title having 65 per cent of the ball, however Maresca’s Leicester’s facet weren’t far behind in successful their very own division with 62 per cent of the possession. Most of the elementary ideas of play had been quickly imported.

The goalkeeper performed out from the again and Ricardo Pereira was tried as an inverted full-back. Kiernan Dewsbury-Corridor, who has since adopted Maresca to Chelsea, revealed that the gamers felt “a bit stupid” within the early weeks as a result of degree of element.

Harry Winks, a senior England worldwide who has performed beneath no fewer than three former Chelsea managers – Jose Mourinho, Antonio Conte and Mauricio Pochettino – advised Sky Sports activities that Maresca was by far one of the best supervisor that he had ever labored with.

Echoes of Guardiola? “They see the game in similar ways,” provides Barry-Murphy. “The way they coach is a total dedication to improving players so they feel comfortable with what they are being asked to do. That core way of playing and coaching is similar, I think.”

Will all this work at Chelsea?

That work has now earned Maresca his likelihood at Chelsea. They’re little doubt attracted by the tantalising prospect of getting recognized the following Guardiola, a coach able to implementing related concepts, maximising the potential of a squad full of expertise.

They could be proper. Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool challenged Guardiola’s domination with their distinctive model however the subsequent threats are more likely to come from like-minded souls. Arteta’s Arsenal and now one other former deputy throughout the capital over at Stamford Bridge.

“Where I think the game has shifted, definitely in the Premier League, is that teams need control,” says Bowley. “The misconception with City’s methodology is that it was about possession. Our focus was on control not possession. That is what you are seeing now.

“Groups are realising that it is rather tough to achieve success with a mannequin that’s constructed round counter-attack. You’ve gotten to have the ability to management the ball to regulate the sport, so there’s this actual urge for food across the recreation for the coaches from Metropolis Soccer Group.

“One of the biggest challenges is that people say they want a methodology and a style of play, but they do not realise what it takes. The one thing I can guarantee it takes, and Mikel Arteta is proof of that, is time. It is not an overnight thing.

“You can not take the Metropolis methodology and play that approach from day one as a result of it doesn’t work like that. You must recognize what it will take and be actually aligned with the coaches as a sporting director. You can not simply go and signal who you want.

“That is why Txiki [Begiristain] is the best at it because he fully understands it. He looks at players in the same way that Pep looks at players. The sporting director has the same vision. The game style is already there. Everyone knows the identity. It is ingrained.”

The depth of Chelsea’s dedication to that strategy, and to Maresca, will probably be examined in time. However a quirk of the fixture record implies that the Italian’s most tough Stamford Bridge task will probably be his first. Guardiola’s Metropolis are the guests on the opening weekend.

It’s a assembly with the grandmaster. One which, in a way, Maresca has been getting ready for from that first assembly in Spain, to the idea work in Italy and the sensible classes in England. Ought to we anticipate a recreation of chess? The phrase by no means felt extra acceptable.

Watch Chelsea vs Man Metropolis stay on Sky Sports activities Premier League from 4pm on Sunday; kick-off 4.30pm