Enzo Maresca: Second Assistant Coach
Enzo Maresca joined West Ham United as Manuel Pellegrini’s second assistant coach in June 2018.
The Italian, who previously played under Pellegrini at Malaga during the Spanish club’s outstanding 2011/12 season, retired from playing and embarked on his coaching career as recently as 2017.
Born in Pontecaganano in south-west Italy, Maresca played youth football for AC Milan and Cagliari before joining English club West Bromwich Albion at the age of 18 in August 1998. There, he made his senior debut in the old First Division and played 52 times over the next 18 months.
Such was Maresca’s impressive form for the Baggies that Juventus spent £4million to take him back to Italy in January 2000. Two months later, he earned the first of 15 Italy U21 caps. However, the youngster found first-team opportunities hard to come by with Juve, with the likes of Pavel Nedved, Zinedine Zidane, Edgar Davids and Antonio Conte filling the midfield positions, but he did enjoy productive loan spells with Bologna and Piacenza.
After making 58 appearances for Juve, Maresca moved on to Fiorentina in 2004, making 25 Serie A appearances and scoring five goals across his single season at the Stadio Artemio Franchi before moving abroad again, this time to Spanish club Sevilla.
There, he enjoyed the best spell of his playing career, scoring 20 goals in 132 games over four seasons, including two in Sevilla’s 4-0 victory over Middlesbrough in the 2006 UEFA Cup final – the first of the club’s record five wins in the competition. A year later, he started again as Sevilla defeated Pablo Zabaleta’s Espanyol on penalties to retain the title.
In Maresca’s four seasons in Andalusia, Sevilla finished third, fifth, third and fifth again in La Liga, while the midfielder also added UEFA Super Cup, Copa del Rey and Supercopa winner’s medals to his collection.
The 2009/10 season saw Maresca head for Greece and Olympiacos, with whom he achieved a second-place Superleague finish, before returning to Spain with Pellegrini’s Malaga in December 2010.
Under the Chilean’s direction, Maresca enjoyed more success at the age of 32, helping Malaga finish fourth in La Liga in 2011/12 and qualify for the UEFA Champions League for the first time in the club’s history.
The final years of the Italian’s long and illustrious career were spent in his homeland, initially with Sampdoria, where he played alongside future West Ham midfielder Pedro Obiang, and later Palermo and finally Hellas Verona.
Having retired in January 2017, Maresca began his coaching career with Ascoli in June of the same year before returning to Seville to work with compatriot Vincenzo Montella at the Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan.