During this international break, The Athletic is publishing a series of profiles on highly-rated managers from across Europe.
We started with Portuguese side Porto’s Francesco Farioli before heading for Spain and Rayo Vallecano’s Inigo Perez. Premier League promotion chasers Middlesbrough’s Kim Hellberg followed, before we had a look at how Cesc Fabregas is doing in Italy with Como. And we stay in Serie A for our next choice, Parma’s Carlos Cuesta…
Carlos Cuesta became the youngest head coach across Europe’s top five leagues when Serie A side Parma hired him in June. It was just over a month before his 30th birthday and the culmination of 15 years’ work.
Cuesta’s route to becoming a manager at the top level began when he was invited to coach youngsters at home in Palma, on the Spanish island of Mallorca, as a teenager.
“I was watching a lot of games and trying to understand the ‘why?’, (and) how things can improve,” Cuesta said about the invite in an interview with UK newspaper The Guardian in December.
Cuesta arrives at Arsenal training with Mikel Arteta (Richard Heathcote/Getty Images)
That only fuelled his passion for coaching. While pursuing a sports-science degree in Madrid, he volunteered for a role in Atletico Madrid’s academy, becoming the coach of their under-14s side at age 22. That was followed by a brief visit to the Italian city of Turin that ended in an academy role with its biggest club Juventus before he became part of Mikel Arteta’s staff at Arsenal in August 2020.
Cuesta, who was 25 at the time, served as an individual development coach before becoming one of Arteta’s first-team assistants.
His work had not gone unnoticed across Europe and when Cristian Chivu departed for Inter after keeping Parma in Serie A last season, Parma made their move to appoint Cuesta.
The new boss oversaw a slow start, but there have been steady signs of progress since November. Parma are now 12th in the 20-team table, seven points clear of the relegation zone, with eight matches left.
A 3-1 home loss to Bologna on November 2 meant Parma had won just one of their first 10 Serie A matches and sat a point above the relegation zone with title-chasing Milan in town next.
In that game, Parma dominated the opening 25 minutes against Massimiliano Allegri’s side with controlled possession and fluid movement. But they failed to find the target with four shots in that spell, while Milan scored with their first two.
However, a first-half stoppage-time curler from midfielder Adrian Bernabe brought the home side back into the game. Captain and centre-back Enrico Delprato’s header just past the hour and multiple Milan missed chances meant it ended as a 2-2 draw, breathing life into Parma’s campaign.
Cuesta gives instructions from the sidelines at Parma (Gabriele Maltinti/Getty Images)
“I am trying to adapt as quickly as possible to this league and get the best out of these players,” Cuesta told Sky Italia afterwards.
On the surface, not much has changed following that draw.
Parma have continued to line up in his preferred 3-5-2. Comparing their past 20 league games, including that meeting with Milan, to the previous 10, they have averaged marginally more open-play expected goals (a measure of quality of chance creation) at either end (0.5 vs 0.4 created per game and 1.1 vs 0.9 conceded). They are still letting in more goals (1.3 per match) than they are scoring (0.8).
However, as the table below shows, Cuesta has implemented noticeable changes in possession while maintaining structure, saying to the media before a 1-0 home win against Fiorentina in late December: “Freedom in football is organised.”
Parma’s improvement in 2025-26 Serie A
| Metric (per 90) | First 10 games | Last 20 games |
|---|---|---|
|
Possession % |
41.6 |
46.6 |
|
Passes attempted |
319.2 |
391.3 |
|
Passes in att 3rd |
50.8 |
65.9 |
|
Passing accuracy % in att 3rd |
55.5 |
68.2 |
|
Chances created |
6.6 |
8.7 |
|
Possessions with 9+ passes |
10.4 |
17.1 |
The example below, from a 1-0 loss to visitors Lecce on October 4, shows Parma’s defenders attempting to lure the opposition forward before finding Bernabe between the lines.
Right wing-back Sascha Britschgi has joined the attack, and strike duo Mateo Pellegrino and Patrick Cutrone are occupying the centre-backs.
This approach left large gaps between Parma’s forwards and the rest of the team with minimal attacking upside, as Lecce had enough players at the back.
In the Milan game just over a month later, Cuesta changed things up. Bernabe often dropped deep on the right, rotating with Britschgi, who moved higher up the pitch.
Delprato added another layer to this, playing a one-two with Britschgi and running in-behind Milan in the seconds that followed.
Their lack of goals — Parma have not scored more than twice in a game all season — can lead to accusations that Cuesta is too rigid. But these rotations show that he can be creative and daring, finding ‘freedom in organisation’.
The example below from last month’s 2-1 home win against Verona sees Bernabe drop again to allow Britschgi to push up. The indecision this causes allows Delprato to find the dropping Pellegrino, with Britschgi briefly ahead of him.
The centre-forward picks out Britschgi, who finds Bernabe. He passes to the left, allowing Parma to move up the pitch as a team.
Those gaps from the first months of the season have now been filled.
Bernabe, who had spells with Barcelona and Manchester City in his academy days, is Parma’s most important player.
The 24-year-old Spaniard’s 30 open-play chances created in Serie A are the most by anyone at the club and he has laid these on in multiple ways, including crosses and through balls.
Parma are not entirely reliant on their right side. Left wing-back Emanuele Valeri’s crosses into the box have been effective, too.
Valeri has attempted 129 open-play crosses, second in Serie A behind Inter’s Federico Dimarco (149). Over the past 20 matches, Parma have averaged 14.4 open-play crosses per 90 minutes, which ranks sixth in the division (up from 8.9 per 90 in the first 10 games, which placed them 16th). Of those crosses, 4.1 per 90 have been low deliveries, only behind Inter (4.6).
In the 6ft 4in (193cm) Pellegrino, Cuesta has an expert attacker of crosses with head and feet alike. The 24-year-old’s link-up play gives Parma an outlet against high-pressing teams, too.
His second goal in their 2-0 Coppa Italia defeat of Serie B visitors Pescara in August illustrates his skill set.
Pellegrino starts the move from the halfway line, shrugging off multiple challenges…
…then sprints forward to convert Valeri’s cross.
Five of his eight Serie A goals this season have been headers. Across Europe’s top five domestic leagues, only Casemiro of Manchester United and Mallorca’s Vedat Muriqi (both six) have scored with their head more.
Cuesta’s alterations to how Parma play have extended to their out-of-possession habits, too.
In those first 10 league games this season, they averaged 4.0 possessions won in the attacking third per 90 minutes, which ranked fifth in Serie A. Parma aggressively man-marked high up the pitch and while this worked, a lack of coordination at times allowed teams to play through them too easily.
Across the 20 matches since, they have won 2.7 possessions in the attacking third per 90, ranking 19th, while taking a more passive approach. The example below, from the 2-0 home defeat to Cremonese in their most recent match, shows the strikers staying narrow to press when the opposition pass sideways, while midfielder Oliver Sorensen is in position to push up when required.
As Cremonese circulate possession, Parma fall back into a 5-3-2 shape to force their opponent wide: their 17.3 open-play crosses conceded per 90 minutes is the most in Serie A.
When opponents have advanced beyond the first line, midfielder Mandela Keita has swept up in front of his defence.
Among central and defensive midfielders with 900 or more Serie A minutes, the 23-year-old Belgian’s 3.2 ‘true’ interceptions (blocked passes and interceptions per 1,000 opponent touches) rank 12th.
Parma retreat deeper as opponents enter their defensive third but keep one or both of their strikers higher up the pitch so they have an outlet for counter-attacks. Below, Keita joins the back five, with the other two midfielders in proximity, but Pellegrino and fellow front man Jacob Ondrejka stay well away.
That gap, however, affords space for the other team to line up shots. Parma have conceded seven goals from outside their penalty area, with only four Serie A teams allowing more. Goalkeeper Zion Suzuki has struggled, conceding nearly four more non-penalty goals than expected (3.8; second-worst behind Verona’s Lorenzo Montipo with 9.3).
Miscommunication and mistakes are to be expected, though, from a squad with an average age of 24. Midfielder Nahuel Estevez is the only player close to Cuesta’s age — he is 30 — to have played even 100 Serie A minutes this season.
Cuesta’s time on the coaching staff at Arsenal meant his Parma side’s set pieces were always going to be keenly-watched, and they lead Serie A with 24 shots and three goals from long throws.
As seen below, their preferred route to scoring from these situations is to win a flick-on at the near post and capitalise on the ensuing chaos.
They have struggled to create quality chances from corners, though, scoring just three times from them, while conceding six times in those situations at the other end.
As his first season in senior management has unfolded, Cuesta has improved Parma, sticking to a style of play while remaining flexible with a young squad to steer them clear of relegation.
Those characteristics look set to lay the groundwork for a coaching career that is already well into its second decade — at the age of 30.
