The Fosse Way

The whole thing is well worth a listen, as Cifuentes lays out what he wants to achieve as Leicester manager and how:

On the Academy

“…we have an Academy that I’m so excited to start to work with because I really believe in the young talent. I’m a big believer that having these possibilities, it’s a very good way to sustain and keep growing as a club…”

Martí Cifuentes uses the word ‘Academy’ 8 times in 25 minutes. He uses it in relation not just to the future but to the upcoming season and to the club’s transfer policy. He uses it more often in 25 minutes than some previous Leicester managers have in their entire time at the club.

That’s partly because we appear to be on the precipice of a golden generation of Academy talent emerging from Seagrave to flood the first team. You can certainly make a team even right now of Academy graduates that looks like a competitive side you could field in one of the cup competitions at the very least.

Still, would some of the other supposed candidates for the job have mentioned our young players so often in their first proper interview as manager? It seems unlikely. Although he uses the word “Academy” on numerous occasions, the key word from this specific quote is “sustain”. Sustainability is what the club’s leadership have been unable to get right over the past few years – lurching from crisis to crisis even when competing at the top of the Championship. 

For the majority of fans, the answer is no longer going out and spending big money to try to ensure promotion or to be competitive in the Premier League. With so many exciting players being developed at Seagrave and proving themselves when they get a glimpse of the first team, let’s put our faith in them. Thankfully, we seem to have the perfect manager to do that.

On the next generation

“…we have a fantastic Academy. So I want the young guys, even the ones that perhaps are not here today [at the training camp in Austria] have a chance to train with us to show themselves, to hopefully have opportunities during the season…”

We all know the potential of Jeremy Monga, Jake Evans, Louis Page, Ben Nelson, Olabade Aluko and the other young players Cifuentes has taken to Austria. What is reassuring is that the others left behind to play in Under 21 pre-season friendlies – such as Tuesday’s game at Brackley Town, in which two separate XIs were fielded even when there are so many eligible players out of the country – will still have a chance to impress the new manager.

That includes Sammy Braybrooke, Tom Wilson-Brown, Josh King and several others who could yet make the step up to first team involvement. It’s great motivation to show every young player at the club, whether they’re currently being lauded or not, that progress is possible.

On the size of the club

“…now I have the opportunity to take a big step into a really big club like Leicester is…”

At some point, most managers will reveal, even if subconsciously, what they really think of the club they’re leading. And some of Leicester’s recent managers have talked the club down. The context here is that, other than a short period as a youth coach at Ajax, Leicester is by far the biggest club Cifuentes has ever worked for, either as a player, coach or manager. His words reflect that he probably knows he has to prove himself at this level.

Even just referring to Leicester as “an opportunity” is refreshing, because there’s a sense that he has earned it through good work at smaller clubs. That arguably hasn’t been the case for any Leicester manager in the King Power era and signifies the reset we need to the days when playing for and managing Leicester City was seen as an honour.

On Andy King

“…when we start the conversations with the club, it’s something that I always ask. I want to work with someone in the staff that knows the players, that knows the club…”

Understanding the unique football club that is Leicester City is not an easy task. Managers will sometimes talk about getting to know a fanbase but it’s not really feasible these days.

The best chance for Cifuentes is to soak up what Andy King can tell him about what made this football club the most envied in the world ten short years ago. He could have brought in his own men but, even if the club made it a condition of his appointment, it sounds like he can see the value of continuity.

On the fans

“…I know how tough sometimes it can be after relegation, but to bring them this love for the game [so] they enjoy our games… as a manager, I owe something to the people that spend the time, the effort to come and support the team. And in that sense, I want the fans to come and watch our games to enjoy the football…”

This is probably the closest we’ll get to a meaningful acknowledgement from our football club that last season:

a) we got relegated

b) it wasn’t much fun for the fans

c) the manner of it wasn’t really acceptable if the club still has any standards

It says everything that it has to come from a man who was nowhere near the club for any period and actually is tasked with picking up the pieces. But we’ll take it.

On the project

“…it’s not going to be easy. So we need to build a foundation. We need to build an identity that can sustain that over time. So I think that the project is very clear…”

At most well-run football clubs, the director of football openly sets the direction of the club. They will communicate clearly with the fans what the long-term strategy of the club is and update them when things have to change for whatever reason.

But enough of this fantasy land. In the world of Leicester City, it’s the manager who communicates the long-term direction of the football club, even if they might be sacked within a few weeks.

Perhaps it’s not important that the project isn’t clear to Leicester fans as long as Cifuentes knows what it is. It’s very early days but with his playing style already fairly clear and a focus on young talent obvious, a direction may well be emerging from nothing.

On identity

“…I really want them to enjoy the way we play this fearless style that I read a lot about this club. And as well, I think that there is a foundation from some years ago about the way of playing that fits very well into my idea. So I want them to feel proud of the football team again…”

We often hear that Claudio Ranieri’s genius was changing very little from what Nigel Pearson had put in place, so that the changes Ranieri did make had a bigger impact – award-winning, you might say. One consequence of this was an idea that Leicester had a clear identity that ran through from manager to manager. As Cifuentes says: “Fearless”. Was this accident or design? 

Either way, Cifuentes has a very different mandate. There is nothing anyone would want to keep from the ruins of the reigns of Cooper and Van Nistelrooy. Cifuentes can start afresh. And the suggestion here is that the Pearson and Ranieri era strikes a chord as much as the Maresca one does.

Yes, it’s still possession football but the early signs from pre-season friendlies have been that the ball will travel from back to front a lot quicker than it did last time we were in the Championship.

On attacking 

“…for me, it’s very important that we are dominant, that we have these attacking ideas during the games, that even if we score one, we keep trying to score another one and another one. And that we use the ball, the possession to try to attack. And if we lose the ball, we try to regain very quick…”

Of course, it remains to be seen whether the Cifuentes style is noticeably different to Enzoball when the reality of managing one of the strongest squads in the Championship means most teams will set up camp on the edge of their own box, especially on Filbert Way. But this feels like a good ethos to kick off with.

On wingers

“…I try to adapt to the strength of the players. I like to play with wingers that play full width, that go a lot one-on-one… when you have players like Stephy, like Jeremy, like Kasey, like Abdul, all of them with pace, all of them brave to go into the last third, it’s very exciting to work with that kind of player…”

We’ll end not on some grand statement or a particularly surprising nugget but perhaps the single most energising thing about Leicester City as we approach the first day of a new campaign. After successive managers sidelined some of the club’s most exciting players, here is a clear statement that Marti Cifuentes will never do that. This is the new Leicester City.