‘The best present I got last season’: Maresca reveals Leicester surprise before Chelsea move

The way Enzo Maresca remembers it, his Leicester players did not ring the doorbell, they snuck around the back of his house and tapped on the windows. It was the end of April, late at night, the club’s promotion back into the Premier League confirmed when Leeds lost at QPR and the players could have gone anywhere to celebrate. That they came here – to be with the manager who had guided them – said everything about their collective bond.

Maresca would swap Leicester for Chelsea over the summer. But as he prepares to take his new club to visit his old one on Saturday lunchtime, he was never going to blot out the emotion, to look beyond the relationships he built during the season that made him. They provide the template for what he wants at Chelsea.

“The first face I saw was Hamza [Choudhury],” Maresca says, with a nod to the Leicester midfielder. “They didn’t knock at the door, they were in the garden and then at my window. When I drew the curtains, it was his face there. We had many good moments and this was maybe not the most important one. But it was the one which showed me how good the connection was between the players and staff.

“It was probably the best present I got last season when we were promoted and at around two o’clock in the morning all the team arrived at my house. I was watching the Leeds game and when it finished all the staff arrived. And then later, very late, the players arrived. They could be in different places to celebrate but they decided to come to my home. When I was a player I was lucky to win things but I never thought to go to the manager’s house.”

Maresca was appointed at Leicester in the summer of 2023 after the club’s relegation; they looked beyond the Italian’s lack of first-team managerial experience – 13 Serie B games with Parma in 2021-22. After an excellent start, it became nervy; questions were asked about him by the Leicester support.

View image in fullscreen Enzo Maresca with Leicester’s players at his house after clinching promotion. Photograph: @LCFC/X

On 13 February Maresca’s team had been 12 points clear of second-placed Leeds and 14 ahead of Southampton. Two months later, after three wins in 10 matches, they were level with second-placed Ipswich and one point clear of Leeds. Home wins over West Brom and Southampton would steady them and perhaps the plunge down towards the wire pulled them even more tightly together.

Maresca says he is unsure about the reception he will get from the King Power Stadium crowd; after all, he did walk out on them. But he knows how he will be with everyone connected to Leicester.

“I will be thankful to the club, the players and the fans because it was a fantastic season,” he says. “I met people that are very difficult to find in football – the owner, his family … they are fantastic human beings. They care for the players, the staff, all of the people who work inside the club. And then in terms of players, it was top. I will be thankful for all of my life to that squad. Most of them I am still in contact with.”

View image in fullscreen Enzo Maresca is unsure how Leicester fans will react when he returns to the King Power Stadium with Chelsea. Photograph: Andrew Boyers/Action Images/Reuters

The affection is plain. When Jamie Vardy’s name comes up, Maresca makes a remarkable claim. “England has been quite lucky with strikers, like Harry Kane, Wayne Rooney and many others but if you ask me, Jamie has been the best one,” he says. “People don’t realise how good he is.”

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Maresca remains in very close contact with one of them – the attacking midfielder Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall, who followed him to Chelsea in a £30m deal. Dewsbury-Hall was one of the stars of Leicester’s league season, a virtual ever-present who contributed 12 goals and 14 assists. At Chelsea he has been out of the match-day squad in the league more than in it, restricted to three substitute appearances. Maresca has counted on him in the Conference League and started him in the two Carabao Cup ties.

Maresca believes that Dewsbury-Hall’s time will come in the league. But as he tries to shape a positive culture, and the early signs have been good, even if it retains a delicate feel with so many talents to satisfy, he wants to highlight Dewsbury-Hall’s contribution.

“The problem with Kiernan is that people just see him if he’s playing or not,” Maresca says. “But people don’t see the way he is helping us in terms of process. Along with Cole [Palmer] and Roméo [Lavia], who worked with me at Manchester City [where Maresca was on the coaching staff], Kiernan is the one that is knowing some of my concepts. He helps us a lot – more than what he’s thinking.

“Kiernan was the most important player at Leicester; he moved to Chelsea to be one other player. You have to accept that. And probably at the beginning, you struggle to accept that. Now it’s getting better. But for sure he has to fight and continue to work, to wait for the chance and take it.”

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