We will get better and better, says Enzo Maresca as Man City fall short against Inter in pre-season opener | OneFootball

Enzo Maresca has reflected positively on Manchester City’s performance in their opening pre-season fixture, insisting he was impressed with his players despite a penalty shootout defeat to Inter Milan in Hong Kong.

The 46-year-old took charge of his first game as City manager on Saturday at the Hong Kong Stadium, with the Blues ultimately losing to Inter Milan on penalties following what Maresca described as an encouraging second-half display after a difficult opening 45 minutes.

The defeat came against one of Europe’s most organised sides and against the backdrop of an unusual squad composition, with the club’s World Cup participants from England, Norway, Spain and France all absent from the touring party on extended post-tournament rest, leaving Maresca to work with a group that blends senior first-teamers with developmental talent.

The result itself carries little weight at this stage of pre-season, and Maresca’s post-match tone reflected that reality – focused almost entirely on the process, the progression visible between the two halves, and the confidence he already holds in the group’s capacity to improve as the tour continues.

His assessment of the performance will be received encouragingly by supporters, with the new manager’s willingness to acknowledge the first-half difficulties honestly while drawing genuine satisfaction from what followed it offering an early insight into how he processes results and communicates with the squad.

Maresca: We will get better and better

Speaking to official Manchester City media following the penalty shootout defeat to Inter, Maresca did not shy away from the first-half struggles but was careful to place them in the broader context of where the team is in its pre-season development.

“I was impressed with all of them and I’m happy with the performance,” said Maresca. “We struggled a bit in the first-half and we know the reason why, but we were much better in the second-half. We will get better and better.”

What does Maresca’s debut in charge tell us about Man City’s pre-season?

The penalty defeat to Inter Milan was always likely to matter less than the texture of what Maresca produced across 90 minutes, with pre-season friendlies against elite European opponents serving primarily as a testing environment rather than a barometer of competitive readiness.

The improvement Maresca identified between the first and second halves – and his willingness to credit the players for it directly – reflects the kind of session-by-session, half-by-half feedback loop that Antoine Semenyo had already hinted at when describing the new manager’s training sessions as “very detailed” and “quite similar to Pep.”

With fixtures against a K-League All Stars XI and Atletico Madrid still to come on the Asia tour, Maresca has two further opportunities to refine his ideas before the squad begins to reassemble in Manchester with the returning World Cup players.

The manager’s confidence that the group will “get better and better” is not empty pre-season rhetoric – it is an early statement of the standards he intends to hold his players to as City’s 2026-27 campaign takes shape around a squad still finding its feet under the direction of a manager who, on first evidence in Hong Kong, appears entirely at ease with that role.