West Bromwich Albion and former Huddersfield Town gaffer Carlos Corberan is the favourite to replace Enzo Maresca at Leicester City
(Image credit: Getty Images)
West Bromwich Albion boss Carlos Corberan has emerged as the favourite to succeed Enzo Maresca at Leicester City if the Italian completes a move to Chelsea.
The Spaniard has earned a deserved reputation as one of English football’s most up-and-coming managers after guiding both Huddersfield and West Brom into the play-offs, as well as playing a key role in Bielsa’s backroom staff at Leeds United.
By his own admission a failed goalkeeper, Corberan found his talents better deployed as a coach in his 20s. After youth coaching roles with Spanish sides Villarreal and Alcorcon, as well as a pair of first-team assistant roles in Saudi Arabia, Corberan got his first experience of senior management with a pair of short tenure with Cypriot sides Doxa and Ermis.
Michael Carrick, Mauricio Pochettino, Frank Lampard, Gerhard Struber, Scott Parker, David Wagner, Will Still: 16/1
Kjetil Knutsen: 20/1
Huddersfield Town under Carlos Corberan: From relegation scrap to play-off final
But Corberan's rise to prominence – at least in English eyes – came at Leeds United, where he arrived as under-23s manager in 2017. A year later, Marcelo Bielsa came in as head coach and promoted Corberan to serve as his assistant alongside his youth team duties.
Corberan came to the attention of Huddersfield Town in 2020, and they controversially moved to dismiss Danny and Nicky Cowley – who had just narrowly led them to avoid a second straight relegation – to bring the Spaniard in as their new head coach.
The outcry quickly died down after a promising start to the covid-hit 2020/21 season, but results fell off a cliff midway through the campaign. Corberan used an intensive high-pressing man-to-man marking system, inspired by the unique approach Bielsa used to great effect at Leeds, but Huddersfield had a far inferior squad that were not capable of performing it to nearly the same level.
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Danny Cowley was controversially fired from Huddersfield (Image credit: Getty Images)
A growing list of significant first-team injuries meanwhile left an already underbaked squad at bare bones, which a poor January transfer window did little to alleviate, but Huddersfield did just enough to hold on and survive the drop once more.
There had been a sense in that first season that Corberan was too dogmatic, asking players to do jobs and enact training methods that were beyond their abilities. Corberan was fiercely criticised in the local press (by this very writer, in fact), but the club kept the faith that with a better squad at his disposal, Corberan was still the head coach they needed to take them forward.
That decision was more than vindicated. An excellent summer transfer window – spearheaded by the arrival of Chelsea loanee Levi Colwill – and a shift in approach from Corberan had a profound effect on their fortunes in his second season at the club.
Levi Colwill thrived under Corberan (Image credit: Michael Regan - The FA/The FA via Getty Images)
Where he had previously been resistant to moving away from plan A, Corberan suddenly became a master pragmatist. The man-marking system was ditched over the summer in favour of a more conventional zonal approach, but the high press remained.
A small bout of covid in the squad led to the discovery of Sorba Thomas, the Welsh wing-back signed from non-league the previous January, who had never previously started a Championship game but immediately became a key player and motivated Corberan to stick with a 3-4-3.
When opponents figured that out and Town had a brief run of poor form in November, Corberan changed it up again. Instead of using one regular formation, Corberan showed himself to be incredibly adept at devising strategies to combat specific opponents.
The result was a run of 54 points in 26 games through the end of the season, with Huddersfield playing seven different formations and never using the same one more than two games in a row.
Still slightly lacking in quality but incredibly fit, hard-working and tactically well-drilled - all qualities typified by star midfielder Lewis O’Brien - Huddersfield were rarely dominant but always resilient and extremely clinical.
15 of their 24 wins that season came by just a single goal, with Corberan’s side showing an uncanny knack for squeezing wins out of games that expected goals suggested should have been draws.
Incredibly, and against all expectations, Huddersfield ended the season in third, beating Luton Town to reach the play-off final, where a pair of controversial penalty decisions helped Nottingham Forest claim a 1-0 win through an unlucky Colwill own goal – though it’s also worth saying a nervous-looking Huddersfield failed to have a shot on target in that game.
Huddersfield were something of a state of disarray off the pitch, however: midway through the season, 25% owner and effectively silent partner Dean Hoyle was forced to step back in to take control of the day-to-day running of the club after the businesses owned by majority owner Phil Hodgkinson went into administration.
That left Town facing an uncertain future, and Corberan feeling like he had taken the club as far as he could – an analysis that has proven to be correct over the past two years. On what was meant to be the first day of pre-season, he resigned as head coach.
Olympiacos came calling later that summer, but expectations were high and he was unable to satisfy the club board with six draws and just two wins in his 11 games in charge. The axe fell after just six weeks.
West Brom under Carlos Corberan: Overnight transformation into promotion contenders
Carlos Corberan, while the West Bromwich Albion manager (Image credit: David Rogers/Getty Images)
It took less time than that for Corberan to re-emerge in the Championship with West Bromwich Albion, where he replaced Steve Bruce with the club sitting second from bottom with just two wins from their first 16 games.
The Baggies themselves were in a difficult situation off the pitch under then-owner Lai Guochuan, with the club racking up considerable debts that placed their ability to continue as a going concern in doubt.
Nonetheless, Corberan was able to dramatically improve results at the Hawthorns West Brom narrowly missed out on a play-off place, finishing just three points outside the top six.
That form continued into the 2023-24 season, with Corberan again showing his flexibility by starting off the side in a 3-4-3 before ditching it in favour of a 4-2-3-1 for much of the rest of the campaign.
With the Spaniard in charge over a full season – and their off-field worries put to bed by a mid-season takeover by American businessmen Shilen and Kiran Patel – West Brom finished fifth.
Corberan again suffered play-off heartbreak, however, with Southampton putting in a typically free-flowing display in the second leg after the sides shared a goalless draw in the first leg.
Would Carlos Corberan be a good fit for Leicester City?
Corberan looks ready to replace Maresca (Image credit: Getty Images)
Still just 41 years old, Corberan’s five full seasons of first-team experience in football have produced promotion at Leeds and play-off qualification at Elland Road (before Bielsa’s side went up the following year), Huddersfield and West Brom, leaving no doubt that he is one of the country’s brightest up-and-coming coaches.
He is deserving of a Premier League opportunity, and has demonstrated his ability to get on and do the job even when drama is unfolding behind the scenes – which may well be vital at Leicester, given the looming risk of being found in breach of financial fair play rules and entering the season with a points deduction.
The ability and willingness to be pragmatic that he demonstrated at Huddersfield would serve Corberan incredibly well at a newly-promoted Premier League club, particularly after seeing how Burnley failed to get results by trying to remain true to the dominant free-flowing style that had got them promoted.
But Corberan also has big ideas for how he would ideally like to play given the means to do so, making him an ideal marriage between a firefighter and a long-term asset who can develop things over the longer haul.
Steven Chicken has been working as a football writer since 2009, taking in stints with Football365 and the Huddersfield Examiner. Steven still covers Huddersfield Town home and away for his own publication, WeAreTerriers.com. Steven is a two-time nominee for Regional Journalist of the Year at the prestigious British Sports Journalism Awards, making the shortlist in 2020 and 2023.
