“If I know how he thinks, he probably also knows how I think,” said Maresca of the opposition boss. “So I don’t think it gives us an advantage in this final.”
This game is very much master versus apprentice.
In an interview while managing Manchester City’s Under-21s in 2020, Maresca said: “Manuel was both the coach and the person who convinced me to try be a coach myself when I finished playing.”
Maresca revealed the Chilean planted the seed when he was playing in midfield for Malaga that he could be a good coach one day.
It was in a season where Pellgrini guided Malaga from the relegation zone to fourth in La Liga to qualify for the Champions League, in a team which featured his current assistant Willy Caballero in goal.
To this day, Maresca is in touch with Pellegrini on a regular basis.
The Italian sent a “short message” to his mentor saying, “see you in the final” before the league phase started and they have been in touch multiple times this season, finally crossing paths again in Wroclaw as both teams conducted open training sessions.
When asked what one lesson he learned from Pellegrini, Maresca said: “I’ve learned many things from Manuel. But if I choose one, he taught me to treat my players as my sons. I have four sons, but I have 25 others in the dressing room.
“It is one of many things I have learned from him. We both know each other pretty well.”
When asked if children must obey their father, Pellegrini added: “When children grow up, parents no longer have any authority. He learned from many people, he was also with Pep Guardiola. He will have and is already having a great career.
“It reflects his ability and the intention to study and learn that he always has.”
Mentions of Guardiola show just how well Pellegrini knows Maresca.
Having also worked under Carlo Ancelotti and Marcello Lippi as a player at Juventus, he will know that one of Maresca’s biggest inspirations was facing Guardiola’s Barcelona team in 2008 while at Sevilla.
Ever since that day, the box-to-box midfielder knew what kind of coach he wanted to be. That’s why he joined Guardiola’s coaching staff in 2020.
Maresca says that educated him greatly. He managed the Under-23 side, briefly leaving for an ill-fated spell at Parma, before returning to become Guardiola’s assistant.
He was influential in adding a tactical evolution, pushing for central defenders like John Stones, to play an inverted full-back role, stepping into midfield, rather than make overlapping runs, to help outnumber teams in the middle of the pitch.
That partnership of Guardiola and Maresca helped City to win a historic treble in 2023, before he joined Leicester to help lead them to the Championship title the following season.
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