Former Manchester City assistant Enzo Maresca has insisted Pep Guardiola knew of his desire to return to management after he joined Leicester as their new head coach.
On Friday, the East Midlands club announced Dean Smith had left the King Power Stadium following the Foxes' relegation to the Championship. In his place is Maresca who worked as part of Guardiola's backroom staff this season.
At the beginning of the week, the 43-year-old Italian had been in Manchester celebrating City's historic Treble success. And, while some have raised eyebrows at his decision to leave the Etihad, Maresca explained his departure was always on the cards.
In an interview with La Gazzetta dello Sport, he said: "At City they had known for a long time that I wanted to come back and coach on my own. There were several things on the table, the Leicester project seemed the most interesting and fascinating to me.
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"And now one of the first things I’m going to do is to call Claudio [Ranieri], he is an institution at the club and the idea that I can somehow continue or pick up where he left off fills me with pride." Maresca then went on to explain how he first started working with Guardiola.
"In 2019 I was working with Manuel Pellegrini at West Ham," he explained. "The experience ended at the end of the year and in the first days of 2020 I came to Manchester to see Guardiola’s training sessions.
"Pep welcomed me, I stayed four days and a good relationship was born. I’d never seen him before, but we hit it off straight away.
"We stayed in touch and in the summer they offered me to lead City’s Under-23 team. I accepted with enthusiasm and things went very well, the team won the league for the first time in their history. The relationship with Pep grew, it solidified. He often came to see our training sessions and he never missed home games."
Maresca briefly joined Parma between May and November 2021 before Guardiola brought him in as assistant manager last summer. The Catalan boss is now on the search for another assistant for the second year in a row.
The Treble of Premier League, FA Cup and UEFA Champions League is the ultimate footballing achievement and you can get your hands on the only official souvenir publication of Manchester City's history-making 2022-23 season, packed with amazing pictures, match reports and reaction. Get your copy here: https://reachsportshop.com/special_edition/manchester-city-treble-winners-2022-23-souvenir-publication/
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