Enzo's First Adventure

[kushiro]

The players that stay with us from last year, they need to change their mentality. The players that we brought in, they need to understand that Leicester is a demanding club.

 

That's the quote that sticks out so far. And if you look at Enzo Maresca's first experience of English football, you can see that attitude in evidence right from the start.

 

This is the story of how an 18 year old from southern Italy arrived in the UK - and quickly impressed everybody who saw him in action.

 

 

July 12th 1998. 

 

It's World Cup Final day - France v Brazil - and Enzo Maresca is watching with special interest.

 

His own country are not involved - but his role model is.  Zinedine Zidane is the type of midfielder he aspires to be. He loves his technique - the ball control, the twists and turns, the elegance. He loves how these skills are employed for the benefit of the team - not for show, but for the purpose of winning football matches. 

 

Zidane scored twice as Brazil were beaten 3-0, and while France celebrated, Azzuri boss Cesare Maldini was being hammered for his negative tactics during the tournament - they hadn't got past the quarter-finals. The Itailan media were on the look out for a new manager - and they were also identifying the young talents on the field that could lead the next generation. 

 

One of those names was Enzo Maresca of Cagliari, captain of the Italian Under-18 team.

 

Cagliari had just been promoted, but Enzo wouldn't be with them in Serie A. He had just made a momentous decision. As he watched the black-blanc-beur team parade the World Cup - he'd decided that his future lay with - the Baggies. Just days after the Final, he was heading for the The Hawthorns.

 

How did that happen?

 

Here's the Sports Argus:

 

 

Ferraresi and Maresca had been pals in Italy - and now they'd be together in the West Midlands.

 

July 20th 

 

Maresca's first training session with West Brom. It's actually a trial - Albion want to see him in action before they sign him, and watching proceedings is boss Denis Smith. 

 

There are two other Italians on trial with him - Marco Nappi and Mario Bortolazzi, who are both in their 30s:

 

 

From left to right: Nappi, Smith, Bortolazzi, Maresca.

 

After just half an hour, Denis Smith had seen enough. He decided to offer Maresca a professional contract. Bortolazzi was also taken on, though Nappi returned to Italy.

 

 

August 8th

 

Albion were in the Football League First Division - what we now call the Championship. Their first fiixture of the new season is away at Barnsley, and Maresca is with his teammates on the coach, hoping to make his debut. 

 

But there's a problem. Cagliari, still incensed about losing their young prodigy for nothing, have not forwarded the paperwork, and Maresca's registration in England has still not been completed.  Albion take the field at Oakwell without him - and draw 2-2. Albion are pretty confident that the hitch will only be temporary. After all, the Italian FA have been faxing them with demands that Maresca be released for Under-18 games.

 

September 16th 

 

Those international commitments were the next interruption to his Albion career.  The transfer formalities were eventually completed,  but come the middle of September, he'd still not pulled on an Albion shirt. 

 

Without him, Albion have had a reasonable start, lying in sixth place. The man making all the headlines is Lee Hughes, who's scored seven goals in seven games.

 

Then comes Maresca's first chance to impress - in a midweek reserve game at The Hawthorns against Middlesbrough.

 

Albion cruise to a 5-2 win - and on the scoresheet is the man who, in 2023, would be targeted by Leicester City as the man to replace Brendan Rodgers - a guy called Graham Potter.

 

Maresca didn't score that day, but played well. In the local press the following day, there are two Albion-related stories:

 

i) Leicester City want to sign Lee Hughes.

 

ii) With Mario Bortolazzi suspended for the weekend game v Bradford City, it looks like either Potter or Maresca will be promoted from the reserves.

 

 

September 20th  

 

West Brom 0 Bradford City 2. Potter wasn't chosen, and Maresca started on the bench. The game was live on Sky - a Sunday 1pm kick -off, and there's a good highlights video online. Forward to 8.25 in this clip and you can see that Enzo made an instant impact when he came on:

 

 

 

 

October 13th

 

Before he got a chance to make the starting XI he was called away again to represent the Italy Under-18s.

 

They played England in Tivoli, but captain Maresca couldn't prevent a 4-2 defeat.  In another weird echo of recent events, playing for England Under-18s that day and up against Enzo in midfield were both Steven Gerrard and Scott Parker.

 

October 24th

 

Desperate to be involved - part 1:  Enzo still hasn't made the Albion starting line-up, but he's on the bench again as they draw 2-2 at Swindon. Lee Hughes adds another to his tally and as he does his famous 'naff dance' goal celebration, Enzo dashes off the bench to join in. The referee isn't impressed and he goes in the book. 

 

November 3rd 

 

Desperate to be involved - part 2:  West Brom 3 Preston 2. Lee Hughes with all three - taking his total to an amazing 18 in 18 games. Enzo comes on as sub yet again and is fouled for the penalty that gives Hughes the chance to complete his hattrick. As the match report said, Maresca had the cheek to try and take the spot kick himself but Hughes was having none of it.

 

 

December 12th   

 

After seven substitute appearances, Enzo finally gets his chance to start at Huddersfield, who have Paul Barnes in their line-up (Harvey's dad). Albion win 3-0 and all the reports agree that Enzo was the Man of the Match:

 

What he lacks in experience, he more than makes up for in skill and passion. And boy does he wear his heart on his sleeve, waving his arms or clenching his fist at every opportunity in a deliberate attempt to wind up the Albion fans. And the tactic paid off to such an extent that all who had made the journey to South Yorkshire began saluting their new hero long before the final whistle sounded.

 

 

 

 

December 26th

 

Two weeks later he stars in a 3-2 win v Preston, and the match report again praised his energy, saying 'Let's hope his enthusiasm rubs off on some of the other players. who are often content to take their foot off the accelerator pedal and coast to the final whistle'.  Professional footballers not giving 100%? Surely not.

 

Now reports start appearing in the press saying Italian clubs are interested in paying a big fee to take him home,  one of them being Sven's Lazio:

 

 

 

January 2nd

 

Enzo's first taste of the FA Cup is at Bournemouth, then in the third tier. The Cherries won 1-0, the winner a career highlight for this fellow:

 

 

 

March 6th 1999

 

After two months out with a foot injury, and with Albion still pushing for a play-off place, Enzo is on the bench as Albion host Oxford. He comes on and scores his first baggies goal - and pretty special it was. Head for 1.10 in this video:

 

 

I wonder how long he'd been waiting to reveal that Superman shirt. 

 

 

April 17th

 

Albion 2 Portsmouth 2.  His second goal for the baggies - and Superman is back. Look at 0.40 in this video:

 

 

 

Despite Maresca's efforts, Albion slipped out of the play-off running, finishing in mid-table.  

 

 

Jul 23rd 1999

 

The biggest moment of Enzo's career so far. Italy Under 18s need to beat the Republic of Ireland to reach the Final of the European Championships, and his goal seals a 2-0 victory - 'twisting one way then the other before shooting home' (no video online unfortunately - unless you know better). In the Final three days later they lost 1-0 to Portugal, but reports say his value has now soared to 4 million pounds, with a host of Italian clubs after him.

 

Could West Brom hold on to him?  The day after the Final,  Albion sacked manager Denis Smith. The man chosen to replace him had experience of taking a club up to the Premier League - Brian Little. 

 

 

Part Two coming soon.

Edited 18 June 2023 by kushiro

[Kinowe Soorie]

Motto bene @kushiro

[kushiro]

Anyone know the West Brom equivalent of foxestalk? I'd like to get some Baggies input on this stuff but I can't find a site that looks anything like as active as this one.

[kushiro]

Part Two

 

Under new boss Brian Little, Albion started the season well, and this was his early assessment of Maresca's contribution:

 

He's a smashing footballer, and technically excellent. I do feel though that I have to play him with two other midfielders. He's great in tight situations and finds a lot of space, but he can be overloaded and overrun if it's two against two. Defensive responsibility is not his strong point yet.

 

Little decided to play him as a substitute for much of the autumn, prefering Andy Townsend, who they'd just signed from Middlesbrough. When he came back into the starting line up he scored this stunning goal at Palace:

 

 

After the Palace game Enzo said that this season he'd swapped the Superman T-shirt for a Bart Simpson one. But with no goals in two months he didn't get a chance to show it off - and before the Palace game he decided it was bringing him bad luck and got rid of it.

 

Presumably, had he scored wearing the Bart Simpson shirt he wouldn't have gone quite this far:

 

 

 

A week after that Palace game, Albion lost 3-0 at Tranmere, but the local paper singled out Enzo for praise, saying he was the team's 'main source of creativity', and was 'full of endeavour for the entire 90 minutes'.

 

Somehow, Little saw things completely differently, and in post-match interviews, gave his opinion of the Italian:

 

 

 

 

A week later he scored again, 'dancing past the keeper' as Albion beat Portsmouth 3-2 at The Hawthorns. That's the only one of his five Albion goals where there's no online video available.

 

Throughout the autumn there was speculation about how long Albion could hang on to him. Parma had bid five million, but Albion wanted seven million (for comparison, Leicester broke their transfer record that December, paying three million for Darren Eadie).

 

His final goal in England was another gem - it came on November 27th, in a 2-2 home draw v Sheffield United, with press reports describing his performance as 'pure genius'. 

 

 

The goal is 40 seconds into this clip:

 

 

 

With home gates barely making it into five figures, Albion were resigned to selling Enzo sooner or later, and in January he joined Juventus for 4 million.  He'd recentlly swapped a 'rusty old Mini Metro' for a new Fiat Brava, and that was a metaphor for the switch from the Hawthorns to the home of the Agnelli family.

 

Brian Little was there for only slightly longer. A disastrous run of one win in 16 games led to his sacking in early March, and Gary Megson stepped into the manager's shoes to save Albion from relegaiton to the third tier, before taking them up to the Premier League in 2002.

 

Little never worked at that level again. But for 19 year old Enzo Maresca, the story had only just begun.

Edited 20 June 2023 by kushiro

[Stadt]

Fantastic as usual 

[Trent Steel]

Great Post and great read/watch!

[Molson Canadian]

Should try to send these posts to Enzo to see.  I'm sure it would bring back memories for him.

 

Great work I have really enjoyed these.

[TheLittleBigMan]

When I read the thread title i imagined him and Pearson fighting off a pack of wolves in the woods.  

[yorkie1999]

On 18/06/2023 at 20:27, kushiro said:

Anyone know the West Brom equivalent of foxestalk? I'd like to get some Baggies input on this stuff but I can't find a site that looks anything like as active as this one.

https://wbaunofficial.org.uk/forumdisplay.php?fid=4

[RumbleFox]

Great work, thank you. 

[kushiro]

Time for a bit of a deep dive further into Enzo's arrival in England. 

 

Let's start with a clip of his second appearance for Albion. It's September 29th 1998, a Tuesday night fixture away at Oxford's wonderful old Manor Ground. It's a game I can actually remember, though I wasn't there. I had just moved in to a flat down the road, and this was the first time there had been an evening game. I can recall how clearly you could hear the roar of the crowd - and Oxford fans made quite a noise that night as they won 3-0. 

 

After Albion had been completely outplayed in the first half, Enzo came on as sub at half time. 

 

The match was being covered by Central TV, whose expert summariser was Ron Atkinson, back on familiar territory. He'd made his name as an Oxford player in the 1960s and 70s.

 

 

Now let's listen to what Ron says when Maresca comes on:

 

 

What??

 

I had to listen to that a couple of times to make sure I heard it right,  but no - he definitely says 'He came round my house the other week to feed the dogs'.

 

This is where Big Ron was living at the time, near Birmingham:

 

So now we can picture the scene. A cute young Enzo enters this plush sitting room, and an even cuter little dog rushes up to him, wagging its tail.

 

Did he go round to feed them when Ron wasn't there, entrusted with the keys to the house? 

 

Atkinson had been Sheffield Wednesday boss until the summer just gone, but was now between jobs. What had he been doing at that time - 'the other week', as he put it? Had he been away somewhere?

 

Well, nearly three weeks before that Oxford game he had indeed been away. This is the Daily Mirror from September 11th:

 

 

So is that the story? When Atkinson flew to South Africa for talks on becoming their new boss, a young Italian, who'd only been in England a month, was given the job of looking after his dogs?

 

Atkinson eventually decided not to take the position in South Africa, saying he wanted to take another stab at club management.  So he was still available to work for ITV. 

 

If you go back and listen to what Ron said next on that Oxford-West Brom commentary, we get another hint about how Enzo came to be Ron's dog-sitter. He says 'his mate's just come on for Villa tonight in the European match'. 

 

He's talking about Fabio Ferraresi - another young Italian who'd been brought to the UK on a free by agent Gianni Paladini (recall the Sports Argus clipping in the first post in this thread).  He was at Aston Villa, and the European match Ron is talking about is a UEFA Cup tie in Norway v Stromsgodset which Villa won 3-0 (Stan Colllymore hattrick). Ferraresi came on as sub for Ian Taylor.

 

So while Ron is working on one match, he's keeping a very close eye on a different game - taking a close interest in the progress of another Italian youngster. And this is pre-smart phones, of course, so he couldn't just glance down at his screen for an update from Norway.

 

Why was he so interested in Ferraresi?  

 

That Sports Argus article actually mentioned a third young Italian brought over by Paladini. As well as Maresca and Ferraresi, it talks about Francesco Sanetti, who had signed for Sheffield Wednesday in the spring. Wednesday's manager at the time was - Ron Atkinson.

 

Hmmm. Ron seems to be a key figure in this tale of young Italians arriving in England on free transfers. 

 

And there's one more Italian we should mention. One of Ron's best friends in the West Midlands was a fellow called Renato Pagliari. 

 

He was a singer, and he became quite famous.

 

He had the Christmas Number One in 1982 with this:

 

 

The woman who sang on the record was called Hilary Lester, though in the video it's a different woman you can see. Since the track was recorded, Lester had moved on to work with different artists.

 

Big Ron once even asked Renato to take the microphone and sing for the crowd before a match. He was a big Villa fan - so maybe when Ferraresi arrived they were introduced - and then Ferraresi told him about Enzo, and then they all went for a meal at Renato's son's restaurant (which was in Tamworth) and Ron mentioned he was off to South Africa, and...

 

Who knows. It's all speculation.

 

But I think we can be pretty sure, considering all of the above, that Enzo and Renato would have met in those early days in the West Midlands. 

 

Perhaps at a future press conference someone can ask him if the names 'Ron Atkinson' and 'Renato Pagliari' mean anything to him. 

 

And maybe 'Save Your Love' can become the new track we run out to at the King Power.

[Wolfox]

@kushiro - You’ve outdone yourself !

 

Top quality sleuthing….   

[kushiro]

Seems a good moment to bump this for anyone who missed it in the summer.

 

His dash on to the Hawthorns pitch today when Harry got the winner was a throwback to his goal celebrations in 1998/99. 

 

 

 

Edited 3 December 2023 by kushiro

[STUHILL]

1 hour ago, kushiro said:

Seems a good moment to bump this for anyone who missed it in the summer.

 

His dash on to the Hawthorns pitch today when Harry got the winner was a throwback to his goal celebrations in 1998/99. 

 

I'm either drunk or this is image is 144p 

[kushiro]

This seems a long time ago. 

 

Who could have imagined, in those rosy days of last summer, that Enzo would lead us into an abyss so deep that we are no longer able to break the all-time points record for the second tier?

 

I posted a link to this on the Albion forum yesterday, and it triggered a fair bit of comment about Brian Little. Here's two examples;

 

I genuinely don't think there is an Albion fan anywhere that didn't recognise Enzo was a very special talent and far superior to anything we had in those years. Yet somehow, football genius Brian Little rarely played him.

I saw most of his games for us and he was a special player. He was one of those rare players that, despite his age, in the first few touches of the ball you just knew you were witnessing a very gifted footballer. You just know instantly just to enjoy them as they aren't going to be with you long. He was that good. I'm only sad I didn't see more of him as his time coincided with the utterly appalling manager that was Brian Little who preferred the older pro's who offered nothing. Townsend being prime example.

Not really worth ploughing through the other comments, but if you're interested:

https://wbaunofficial.org.uk/showthread.php?tid=33378

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited 18 April by kushiro