Fulvio Fiorin, a man who has known Enzo Maresca for three decades, has been speaking up the Italian’s suitability for the Celtic job amidst continued links.
Maresca is one of many names to have been connected to the vacant managerial position at the Bhoys following Ange Postecoglou’s exit to Tottenham Hotspur. The latest reporting suggests that Celtic will look to speak to the 43-year-old in the coming days, after the UEFA Champions League final.
For veteran football coach Fiorin, it’s a task that Maresca would undoubtedly rise to.
He told The Times: “He’s an ambitious guy desperate for growth, and people like that don’t stay in their comfort zone. Even someone like Pep Guardiola could have spent his whole life at Barcelona, but he didn’t want to stay in his comfort zone and so he left to grow and improve elsewhere. If you’re in a good job and a nice situation, you can say, ‘Right, that’s me for life’, but if you have ambition and desire for growth, that’s not what you do.
“I haven’t spoken to Enzo specifically about Celtic, but I do know that he has that ambition, that desire to stretch himself and improve. He is someone who accepts challenges.
“For sure, not everyone has the courage to go and work at a club like Celtic, but I don’t believe Enzo would shy away from it. Looking back on my own experience of going to Celtic with Milan under Inzaghi, I found the whole atmosphere and climate around the club absolutely fabulous. When you hear all those fans sing, it must be a brilliant stimulus to say, ‘Right, this is where I want to be.’
“People who aren’t scared of change, of trying new experiences, who aren’t scared of growing and getting better, they are the ones who succeed in this game. Enzo has always had that mentality — he has never been scared of these things. [Manuel] Pellegrini is a very good coach who follows a more traditional view of the game, but that was still a very important part of Enzo’s formation, both as a player and a coach. You know what it means to have played in Italy, Spain, Greece, England: all different experiences in terms of attitude, mentality, training methodology. All these things are really important in one’s formation. The person who has seen the whole room will always have grown more than the one who has always stayed in a small corner of it.”
Fiorin goes on to state that Maresca has a great chance of becoming a top-level manager, despite a difficult stint at Serie B side Parma a couple of years go.
Some Celtic fans understandably have reservations about the Man City man’s credentials, but I suspect it will be hard to find anyone working in football who has a bad word to say about him.
As a player, he performed at the highest level and won trophies. As Pep Guardiola’s assistant, he’s done similar. Is it so much of a stretch to think he will rise to the task of leading Celtic?
There’s a long way to go on all this, of course, but with suggestions that Dermot Desmond is personally impressed by this guy, his status as one of the frontrunners will continue.
In other news, Report: Celtic remain steadfast after official Spurs approaches.
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