Enzo Maresca is looking forward to Chelsea’s upcoming match against Manchester City, seeing it as another chance to work on the team’s new playing style.
Maresca, who is excited to bring more joy to fans in the USA, began working with Chelsea’s players in early July.
During the team’s USA tour, he emphasized that winning is not the main focus right now. Instead, the priority is for the team to practise and develop the new strategies they’ve been working on in training and meetings.
After a 2-2 draw with Wrexham on July 24 and a 4-1 loss to Celtic, Maresca highlighted the team’s progress.
On Wednesday night in Atlanta, Chelsea showed impressive attacking play against Mexican champions Club America.
Saturday’s game at Ohio Stadium will be a tougher challenge as Chelsea faces Manchester City, the current Premier League champions.
Maresca said, “The target is to continue to try our things, the things we started doing since day one. Try to continue to improve day by day.”
Regarding the pre-season, Maresca noted, “We are improving. For sure when you have this amount of games, the focus is on the game but in this moment, we are using the games like training sessions because in this moment, our target is focusing on what we can improve.”
Captain Reece James has played in every pre-season game so far as he works to regain full fitness after missing much of the 2023/24 season due to injury.
Maresca mentioned that James might sit out one of the upcoming games since he will be suspended for the first three matches of the domestic season due to a red card against Brighton & Hove Albion.
Chelsea is playing five matches in the USA this summer as part of their pre-season preparations.
After the matches in Santa Clara, Notre Dame, Atlanta, and Columbus, the team will face Real Madrid in Charlotte on Tuesday.
Maresca said, “It is nice because you see people are happy, especially many kids who are happy to see Chelsea, Manchester City and teams like Club America, they are here just to enjoy the football game so we are happy.”
