The high point of the Enzo Maresca reign was winning the Club World Cup in July. He relied on ideas that brought the best out of his star man under the previous head coach, but does not want to limit himself to one blueprint, believing there is "no comparison" to the task that awaits in Bavaria.
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‘Game by game’
Chelsea were a world away from this sort of stage when they started Year 1 with their manager.
“We are very happy to be in this competition. One year ago, we were playing Conference League.”
Maresca has since taken the team to a top four finish and their first two titles of the BlueCo era.
“Winning the Conference League and Club World Cup help different aspects. In terms of experience, all of us when we start something we lack experience we have to start. We're going to start here.”
The Blues will want to set their sights high in the tournament, but they cannot afford to get ahead of themselves. Quizzed about his expectations for Europe, the manager replied in his typical manner.
“I always like to go game by game. You can’t think about the final semi-final if you do not win games in the group stage and is the first thing we have the first one against a fantastic team that probably is one of the three four favourites in this competition but uh we're going to try to do our job.”
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‘Every game is different’
Confidence built across four months
However, the Italian is clear that the successes of the last four months have made a difference.
“When you win game it helps to improve confidence to improve different things, different aspects knowing that every game is different, every competition is different and as I said Bayern Munich this moment probably it's one of the favourite ones but we want to try out best.”
Echoes of the PSG masterclass
The club will be craving performances like the one against Paris Saint-Germain in the USA. Maresca used Pedro Neto as cover on the left flank, Malo Guso galloped forward to overlap Cole Palmer on the right, and the talismanic ten had freedom to drift into areas where he is dangerous.
It is not a blueprint that fans have seen since, and the coach communicated why this is the case.
“For me, every game is different for that game against PSG. I think the first eleven, the ones that they were inside second half the plan everything work well but tomorrow is completely a different game. I don't see any comparison between the two.”
