Incoming Manchester City boss Enzo Maresca will have to decide what to do with his international stars this summer
METLIFE STADIUM, EAST RUTHERFORD, NEW JERSEY, UNITED STATES - 2025/07/13: Enzo Maresca, head coach of Chelsea FC, looks on prior to the FIFA Club World Cup final football match between Chelsea FC and Paris Saint-Germain FC. Chelsea FC won 3-0 over Paris Saint-Germain FC. (Photo by Nicolò Campo/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Enzo Maresca won't be at the MetLife Stadium this summer but plenty of his Manchester City players could be
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Enzo Maresca will officially start work at Manchester City in the coming days, but he has been planning for much longer. Having been out of work since January, and knowing for weeks that Pep Guardiola had decided to step down, the Italian has had lots of time to think about what he wants to do with his squad.
One of his biggest calls will come early on before a ball has even been kicked in the Premier League. When he takes a young, inexperienced group away to Hong Kong for the club's summer tour, who does he want to join him?
One of the issues of having such a good squad is that nearly all of them will be involved with their national teams at the World Cup. City have pushed the start of their tour a little later this year but they still fly out to Asia less than two weeks after the MetLife Stadium hosts the World Cup final.
Even if there are no City players involved in that final, the likelihood is that several Blues will be there for the latter stages of the tournament. Maresca takes his team to Asia four weeks after the last-32 fixtures, three after the last-16 and just over two after the quarter-finals.
That will give the new coach a decision to make on if and when he decides on City players to either join up for the whole tour or arrive at a point along the way. Pep Guardiola very occasionally instructed players to cut short their rest - Bernardo Silva got barely any holiday after the 2018 World Cup - but generally was known for giving his stars more time off than most of his colleagues.
City's way of thinking was that even if they started the season at less than full strength, it was better for their important players to have had at least four weeks of rest in the summer before being asked to go again. Maresca will see the value in that, yet at the same time will want to make as strong a start as possible with many players he hasn't worked with before.
Is a set rule the best to live by, such as asking every player to report when it is three or four weeks since their last game? Or can a more bespoke operation be put in place to take into account the different circumstances for individual players?
It is an early test for how Maresca can manage his group of players - many of them with far more experience and seniority than he had at Chelsea - and could have a positive or negative influence for the entire season ahead. No pressure, then.