Maresca joined Leicester in the summer of 2023 and by the end of his first season at the club, he had guided our opponents on Saturday to the Championship title and back into the Premier League.

The team’s impressive style of play and his much-heralded coaching methods resulted in Chelsea deciding Maresca was the ideal head coach to lead the club moving forward.

He was joined at the Blues by a number of the coaches who had also joined him at Leicester City and they have made a great start to life at Stamford Bridge, with the club third in the Premier League table and top of the Conference League standings.

Saturday’s match at King Power Stadium will be the first time Maresca has returned to Leicester City as Chelsea head coach so it was unsurprising much of his time talking to journalists this week was spent discussing his spell in the East Midlands.

One of the topics to come up was the day Leicester won promotion back to the Premier League, and what happened next provides real insight into Maresca and his staff’s coaching style and the relationships they are able to build with their players.

Maresca had been watching Leeds United’s game with QPR on April 26 at his home and when the Whites’ suffered a surprise 4-0 defeat to the West Londoners, Leicester’s automatic promotion was secured and the Italian was quickly joined in celebrations by his staff.

‘The best present from last season was when we got promoted and all of the players turned up at my house at 2am, as it showed how close the connection was with the players,’ Maresca said, picking up the story.

‘We were having a normal celebration with the family, kids and all the staff – so the likes of Willy [Caballero], Danny [Walker], Robbie [Vitiello], Michele [De Bernardin] – all the guys who worked together were there.

‘The first player I saw was Hamza Choudhury. They didn’t even knock on the door. They just went into the garden, I heard a knock on the window and then his face was there.

‘We had many good moments last year and this might not have been the most important moment, but it was the moment which showed how good the connection was between the players and the staff.’

Maresca enjoyed a hugely successful playing career, winning the Serie A at Juventus, lifting the UEFA Cup twice at Sevilla, where he also bagged the Copa del Rey, Spanish Super Cup and the UEFA Super Cup, and also claimed the Serie B title at his penultimate club Palermo.

‘In my career as a player, I was very lucky because I won trophies but I never went to a manager’s home to celebrate!’ he joked.

‘I feel very lucky, and it showed the connection between the players and the staff.’

Maresca has spoken on several occasions since his arrival at Chelsea about how he likes to develop close relationships with his players.

He arrived at Stamford Bridge with good relationships already in place with the likes of Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall, Cesare Casadei, Cole Palmer and Romeo Lavia, having been their coach at Leicester and Manchester City respectively, and you only have to watch a training session at Cobham to see the players are really enjoying working under Maresca.

When asked if he wanted to build a similar culture at the Blues, Maresca replied: ‘Yeah absolutely. I have said since day one at Chelsea that I like the relationship with the players to be quite close because I think they need that so hopefully, here it can be the same.’

When a head coach or player returns to a club for the first time, there is always intrigue when it comes to the reception they will receive from the home supporters, regardless of their achievements while they were there.

Time will tell whether Maresca will receive a positive reception or not but one thing is for sure: he cannot speak highly enough of the Foxes and their fans.

‘I don’t know how they are going to receive me but I know how I am going to be there,’ Maresca said.

‘I will be thankful to the club, to the players and to the fans because it was a fantastic season. I cannot control how they will receive me but I can control how I will receive them and I will be fantastic with them.’

‘I will always be thankful to them,’ he continued. ‘The way I receive them will be fantastic – the owners, the sporting directors, the staff, the players, everybody there.’