Among the contrasts on show when Cardiff City host Chelsea in the Carabao Cup quarter-final, there are familiar links: Brian Barry-Murphy and Enzo Maresca both worked on Pep Guardiola’s coaching staff at Manchester City as recently as 2023. Barry-Murphy was leading Man City’s Elite Development Squad, coaching players such as Cole Palmer, before moving on to other roles.
His path to Cardiff has been unconventional. Now with Cardiff four points clear at the top of League One, his previous senior job had been with Rochdale from 2019-21. Leaving Rochdale, he hadn’t planned to return to youth coaching, but the opportunity to work with elite talents and under one of his heroes proved irresistible.
“There were three major parts for me,” Barry-Murphy tells Sky Sports. “First, the chance to work with someone I had been obsessed with for a long time in Pep Guardiola. From him I learned how important it is to have an obsessive focus every single day. In football there is a lot of outside noise, but the focus on the daily work leading up to the game was total. The players were aligned with that and I saw the results.”
He also credits Lorenzo Buenaventura, Man City’s fitness coach, for showing how a training programme can bring a game model to life. “Their training programme and how it brought the game model to life blew my mind. It was something I always wanted as a player and it has become an important influence on how we train here at Cardiff.”
Second, Barry-Murphy says, he had people above him who believed in his methods and wanted to give him a test to improve. Third, the calibre of players in the dressing room forced him to elevate his coaching. “Working with players like Cole Palmer, Oscar Bobb and others meant I had to evolve and really test myself. That environment gave me the tools to become a better coach and fed my drive to improve every day.”
After leaving Manchester City, he spent a season as assistant to Ruud van Nistelrooy at Leicester City. “I left Manchester City intending to take on a role like the one I have now, but the opportunity arose to work with Ruud in the Premier League,” he says. “He was the manager and I was his assistant. Working with a squad of that calibre after my time at City was a great opportunity for me at that point. It was an unexpected opportunity. Even though it was a difficult time for the club I took a lot from it. All the experiences over those years at those two clubs gave me the appetite to test myself again as a manager.”
Barry-Murphy took over Cardiff in the summer after their relegation from the Championship. The club’s squad includes a number of young players — Ronan Kpakio (18), Joel Colwill (21), Cian Ashford (21) and Dylan Lawlor (19) among them — and Cardiff currently sit top of League One, having scored more goals than any other side and playing an attractive brand of football. The transition from working with elite young talents to a senior squad has felt natural to him.
“The only difference is the individual characteristics of the players,” he says. “The way of training, working and investing in their future is the same. We have players here with high potential and we want every member of the squad to feel that we are invested in their improvement. If players, young or old, see that you are committed to improving them, their response is natural. That is what I see here.”
Barry-Murphy admits his time at Rochdale — which ended with relegation in 2021 — left him wanting to prove himself. “I felt I was at a point in my career where I needed to prove myself and test what I had learned over the past few years,” he says. He points to the size of the club and the strength of the fanbase as major draws to Cardiff: “The sheer size of the club and the level of support from the city were major factors in me coming here. I already had an awareness of the players in the dressing room and had a real appetite to work with them.”
He praises the blend of local young players keen to represent the club and senior professionals who act as influential figures in the dressing room. “I feel blessed to be in this environment, pushing the club forward with such strong support. I actually underestimated it a little. The range of supporters and the size of the fanbase are incredible. There is so much room for growth in the city and our job is to give the supporters a team they can be proud of. They seem connected with what we are doing.”
With the Cardiff City Stadium likely to be in full voice for the Chelsea tie, Barry-Murphy’s side will hope to produce a shock and continue the momentum that has them challenging for immediate promotion from League One.