Chelsea appoint Enzo Maresca on five-year contract

Chelsea have appointed Enzo Maresca on a five-year contract, plus an option of a further year, designed to give the club stability after a turbulent two years under the new regime led by US investors Behdad Eghbali and Todd Boehly.

Maresca’s five-year contract, plus the option of a further year, is one of the longest sanctioned by the club for a manager. Chelsea hope it will avoid questions over renewals, although given the Clearlake Capital-led consortium’s history of sacking managers that will be no guarantee of longevity if the team do not get results.

Maresca’s appointment has been agreed and lawyers are working towards a Friday announcement. The Italian returns from holiday at the weekend. Eghbali and Boehly are both in agreement that Maresca is the outstanding candidate to follow Mauricio Pochettino. The Argentine left by mutual consent this month after a single season in the job.

Maresca is the fifth manager of the new post-Roman Abramovich regime, including Thomas Tuchel who was the sanctioned Russian’s final appointment. Pochettino followed Graham Potter and then caretaker Frank Lampard.

The club’s owners want to challenge for the Premier League as well as the domestic cups, the Uefa Europa League Conference, for which Chelsea have qualified, and the Fifa Club World Cup. The 2020 Champions League triumph qualified them for the new extended format of the Club World Cup in June and July next year. Ultimately, the club want to be back as a staple of the Champions League, as they were under two decades of Abramovich’s ownership.

Maresca, 44, will bring at least six staff with him from Leicester. They include the former Chelsea goalkeeper and assistant manager, Willy Caballero; coach Danny Walker; goalkeeper coach Michele de Bernardin; fitness coach Marcos Alvarez and first-team analyst Javier Molina Caballero. Maresca will also bring assistant Roberto Vitiello to work on bringing young players from the academy to the first team.

Leicester City, newly-promoted under him, will now go about the process of finding a replacement. Carlos Corberan of West Bromwich Albion is one candidate although with Leicester facing huge challenges under Premier League profit and sustainability rules, paying compensation could be an issue. Corberan signed a new contract in February keeping him at the club until 2027.

Maresca, who began his career at West Brom, played for 10 clubs, including Juventus, in a 20-year career. He has managed just 67 senior games as a manager – at Parma, where he lasted six months in 2021 and then the Championship-winning campaign at Leicester last season.

His association with Pep Guardiola has been a powerful draw for Chelsea. Maresca won the Premier League 2 title in 2021 with the club’s Under-23s. After Parma, he returned as one of Guardiola’s assistants.