‘All right, baldie’: the nickname that shows Enzo Maresca has never lost the common touch

New Manchester City boss arrives with dressing-room humour intact from his Etihad backroom days

Manchester City’s players are about to discover something their new head coach’s old colleagues have known for years: Enzo Maresca isn’t afraid to laugh at himself.

As the Italian formally begins work at the City Football Academy this week, having completed his move from Chelsea, details have emerged of a running joke Maresca shared with staff during his previous two spells at the club. First as an Elite Development Squad coach, then as Pep Guardiola’s assistant during the Treble-winning 2022-23 season.

The greeting was simple, and unlikely to feature in any coaching manual. One follically-challenged staff member would spot another and offer a cheerful “Morning, baldie.” The reply, delivered in kind, was “All right, baldie.” Maresca, by his own admission, was a willing and regular participant.

A running joke with no clear origin

The exchange, first reported by The Telegraph’s James Ducker, became such a fixture around the training ground that nobody could quite pin down how it started. “I don’t know how it started,” one former staff member recalled. “It just got said one day and it stuck. Enzo was top.”

It’s a small detail, but not an irrelevant one. Maresca, 46, returns to Manchester having built a reputation for meticulous tactical planning and heavy use of data — the kind of manager who can talk positional structure for hours.

But those who worked alongside him at City point to something less obvious: an ability to put people at ease, whether that’s a first-team star or a kit man on the training pitches.

That combination — the technocrat with the common touch — is part of why City moved so decisively to bring him back.

Sporting director Hugo Viana finalised a compensation package worth around £17m with Chelsea to prise Maresca away and install him as Guardiola’s successor, ending a search that had been closely watched across the Premier League.

 Straight into a packed in-tray

There will be little time for reminiscing once pre-season begins in earnest. Maresca is set to lead City’s squad on a pre-season tour of Hong Kong and South Korea, with three friendly matches scheduled, before turning his full attention to a Premier League title challenge.

He inherits a squad with pressing issues to resolve. Rodri, the Ballon d’Or winner whose absence through injury shaped much of City’s previous campaign, is now set for further surgery after the World Cup and will miss the start of the new season — a significant blow to a midfield already being reshaped.

City have moved to address that area, with the signing of Elliot Anderson already completed and reported interest in Lille’s Ayyoub Bouaddi and Newcastle’s Sandro Tonali suggesting more activity is likely before the transfer window closes.

There is also known interest in Chelsea right-back Malo Gusto, a player Maresca worked with closely at Stamford Bridge, though City are understood to have paused that pursuit over valuation.

None of it will be straightforward. Rebuilding a midfield without its most influential player, integrating new signings, and stepping into the shoes of the most successful manager in the club’s history are challenges that dwarf any training-ground nickname.

But for a squad about to meet its new head coach for the first time, the “baldie” story is a useful reminder: whatever demands Maresca brings on the tactics board, he’s unlikely to lose the dressing room over how seriously he takes himself.