'The best present I got last season': Maresca reveals Leicester surprise before Chelsea move

Yesterday at 05:30 PM

Manager recalls the relationships he built at his former club and why he thinks Jamie Vardy is England's greatest striker

The way Enzo Maresca remembers it, his Leicester players did not ring the doorbell, they snuck around the back of his house and tapped on the windows. It was the end of April, late at night, the club's promotion back into the Premier League confirmed when Leeds lost at QPR and the players could have gone anywhere to celebrate. That they came here – to be with the manager who had guided them – said everything about their collective bond.

Maresca would swap Leicester for Chelsea over the summer. But as he prepares to take his new club to visit his old one on Saturday lunchtime, he was never going to blot out the emotion, to look beyond the relationships he built during the season that made him. They provide the template for what he wants at Chelsea.