Enzo Maresca's First Steps as Manchester City Manager
Enzo Maresca steps into the light on Saturday, but he already knows the score.
Taking over from Pep Guardiola at Manchester City is not a job that comes with a bedding-in period, and the Italian made that clear in Hong Kong as he prepared for his first game in charge – a pre-season meeting with Inter Milan.
“We're going to be judged, always – not just tomorrow,” he said. No soft launch. No hiding place.
Life after Pep begins
Maresca formally took the reins last month after Guardiola walked away from a decade that yielded 20 trophies and reshaped the club’s identity. Every training session now carries a double weight: preparing for a new season, and proving that City can evolve without the man who turned them into a machine.
They have been together just 10 days. A handful of sessions, some new patterns, some fresh ideas. On Saturday, the first glimpse.
“We started 10 days ago, all together, we are introducing some new concepts, so it's also important tomorrow to see something,” Maresca said. He doesn’t want a tribute act. “I don't believe in copy and paste. I think every manager is different... so it's my target, my duty, to try to introduce some new ideas.”
The Guardiola shadow will stretch over every touch and every tactical tweak, but Maresca is already drawing his own outline.
A stripped-back City in Asia
This is not the full City juggernaut touring Asia. The squad in Hong Kong is notably lighter, the first stop on a trip that will also take them to Seoul, but several of the club’s World Cup stars are missing.
Erling Haaland, last season’s Premier League top scorer, has not travelled. Nor has Rodri, fresh from captaining Spain to World Cup glory and now recuperating from minor back surgery.
His absence has not stopped the noise. Talk of Real Madrid circling has followed Rodri into his holiday, but Maresca brushed it aside.
Speculation, he called it. Nothing more.
He stressed there had been no meetings “just focused on Rodri” with the club hierarchy. The midfielder’s priorities, Maresca pointed out, were clear: finish the season, win the World Cup, then rest.
“Every manager in the world wants Rodri because he's a top player, so it's important for me, for the club, for everyone, but now he needs his holiday.”
For now, City must work without the man who has been their metronome. For Maresca, that means testing those “new concepts” with a different balance, a different heartbeat in midfield, and a different focal point in attack.
A familiar face in new colours
On the opposite side in Hong Kong, one of City’s recent stalwarts will be wearing black and blue.
Inter announced on Thursday the signing of former City defender John Stones on a two-year deal, snapping him up as a free agent after his contract at the Etihad expired at the end of last month. At 32, Stones arrives in Italy off the back of helping England to a third-place finish at the World Cup and with a wealth of experience at the highest level.
“For us, having the possibility to get John Stones as a free agent, it's important,” Inter head coach Cristian Chivu said. He ticked off the attributes one by one: quality, personality, charisma, experience. A defender, yes, but also a presence.
“It's one defender added to our group of defenders who will definitely improve the department,” Chivu added.
So the narrative in Hong Kong writes itself: Maresca’s first steps with City, Inter unveiling a former City pillar, two clubs using the same friendly to ask very different questions about the season ahead.
For Guardiola, this would have been another routine stop on a well-oiled tour. For Maresca, it is something else entirely – the first public examination of how you follow a legend without trying to be one.
