Devoted to “san Pep”, football like chess: who is Enzo Maresca, from Pontecagnano to Chelsea

Guardiola's sorcerer's apprentice made official: from promotion with Leicester to London, a coach "obsessed with details"

ROME – From Pontecagnano to Wembley is a moment. The journey as a devotee of Enzo Maresca’s “San Pep” is more of a leap: into the void, or towards the hyperuranium of the most glittering Premier League. Nothing in between, except his apprenticeship as Guardiola’s sorcerer’s apprentice and an almost maniacal passion for chess. Here is who – in extreme summary – the new Chelsea manager is, an (another) Italian in London.

In England they take it with a pinch of salt, for the moment. He may be a disciple of Guardiola, his second at City, but in short: it’s a long way from promotion with Leicester to a rich and famous club, albeit a bit in decline. But for months the English newspapers have studied his theses, including the one deposited in Coverciano. Inside there is indeed a chess treatise applied to football, including the hypermodern Nimzo-Indian defense used by every Grand Master since the time of Jose Raul Capablanca

He had found a teacher while in Palermo and must, in time, have learned the finer details of the Sicilian Defense and the Liver, delightfully called “The Fried Liver Attack”. What all this has to do with formations and offside is to be found in that world of inverted full-backs, total domination of the ball, mental and physical fatigue of the opponents, ruthless line breakdowns and overloads that Maresca has taught to Leicester in the last year. An “obsessed with small details”, they say: he even explained to his professionals that each step must be carried out on the right foot. The right-handed, the left-handed: the basics.

He explained himself in a nice interview with the magazine “Scacchistica”. “Football and chess are similar from a tactical and strategic point of view, in the need to control the center, in the valorization of the surprise factor, in the subdivision of the phases of the game (opening, middle game, final) and in the positional game, which it is my passion, both for football and for chess. Looking at the teams that have made the history of football, for example Guardiola’s Manchester City and Barcelona, or Sacchi’s Milan, a strong and compact midfield, technically valid, offers important advantages, and allows you to pass a good part of your game from there. In my opinion, whoever has control of the midfield has control of the match. Obviously if you intend to use it it’s about passing the ball straight away from the defense to the attackers, the center isn’t of much use to you. In a certain sense it’s the contrast between the classic and hyper-modern game: the Guardiola game is more similar to the classic one, in which the aim is to occupy the player. center, the “defense and counterattack” one resembles those schemes in which you open up from the flank, and leave the center to the opponent”.

Per the Telegraph “Maresca inherited a club on its knees after a surprise relegation, Leicester, with the departure of key players such as James Maddison, Youri Tielemans and Harvey Barnes. To introduce such a unique and different style of play took courage and achieved promotion and a title.” Now he got Chelsea. Checkmate, perhaps.