Enzo Maresca Has His Staff Locked In. Now Comes the Hard Part at Man City.

Enzo Maresca’s first real test as Manchester City manager is still a month away. But he’s no longer assembling the operation on the fly.

The club confirmed last week that seven new coaches are joining the Italian’s backroom staff. Roberto Vitiello, Willy Caballero, Danny Walker, Michele De Bernardin, Marcos Alvarez, Denis Silva and Javier Molina have all signed on. That leaves just two holdovers from Pep Guardiola’s era: set-piece specialist James French and goalkeeping coach Richard Wright.

Here’s the thing about Maresca’s approach. Every single one of those new hires has worked with him before. He’s not walking into the Etihad cold with a bunch of strangers. He already knows who runs a sharp session and who doesn’t. That kind of trust matters when you’re trying to sell a new system to a squad that just spent years learning Guardiola’s way.

Fresh staff, fresh start

Maresca is essentially building his own culture from scratch. Only two guys from the old guard stuck around. That’s a deliberate choice. It gives him room to breathe without Pep’s shadow making every decision feel like a comparison. Look, Guardiola’s influence doesn’t vanish overnight. The man won four straight Premier League titles and a Champions League. His fingerprints are all over that building. But Maresca clearly wants his own voice in the room, not a bunch of assistants whispering what Pep would have done.

The timing works, too. City heads to Asia for preseason before taking on Arsenal in the Community Shield on August 16 at the Principality Stadium. That trip is basically a working vacation for a new staff trying to figure out how to communicate on the fly. Maresca gets a couple weeks on the road, in hotels, in training sessions that don’t count yet. That’s when real chemistry happens between a manager and his coaches.

The quiet advantage of familiarity

Maresca didn’t just hire random bodies. Vitiello worked with him at Parma and Leicester. Caballero played with him and later coached under him at Leicester. Molina was his assistant at Parma. De Bernardin was his analyst at Leicester. These aren’t job interviews. These are reunions.

That matters because Maresca doesn’t have time to waste. City fans expect to win now. The board didn’t hire him for a five-year rebuild. He needs to get his ideas across fast, and having lieutenants who already speak his language cuts the learning curve in half. Or more.

The squad itself hasn’t been overhauled. Most of the same faces are still there — the spine that Guardiola built is mostly intact. But the instructions will be different. The rhythms will shift. And the guys delivering those instructions every day will be people Maresca trusts completely.

One last thing worth noting. Guardiola’s departure left a vacuum that no single hire could fill. But Maresca has done about as much as he can to control the transition. His staff is set. His preseason schedule is locked. Now it’s just about whether the football matches up.