LONDON: Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho said he felt "like a kid" after claiming the first trophy of his second Stamford Bridge tenure with a League Cup final victory over Tottenham Hotspur.
A deflected John Terry strike and a Kyle Walker own goal gave Chelsea a 2-0 win at a rain-soaked Wembley on Sunday and earned Mourinho his third success in the competition after two triumphs during his first spell as the west London club's manager.
It ended a 914-day wait for silverware for the 52-year-old Portuguese -- the longest of his managerial career -- and he expressed hope that it was a sign of things to come for his nascent Chelsea team.
"For me it's very important to feel that I'm a kid," said Mourinho, whose previous trophy had been the 2012 Spanish Super Cup he won with Real Madrid.
"Before the game I had the same feelings as my first final, I don't know how many years ago. It's important for me to feel the same happiness after the victory. It's important for me to feel that I am a kid at 52 years old.
"I know I have a team to build, which is what we are doing, but I feed myself with titles. It's difficult for me to live without winning things, even knowing that we are doing the work to be stable for many years.
"I need to feed myself with titles. It's important for me, it's important for the boys. For the club it's one more cup.
"But it's the first one of the new team. You have Petr Cech, John Terry, (Didier) Drogba, and after that everybody belongs to a new generation of players. So as a team, very, very important."
One of Chelsea's new generation to feature prominently at Wembley was 20-year-old French centre-back Kurt Zouma, pressed into action as an auxiliary holding midfielder in the absence of the suspended Nemanja Matic.
"It's very difficult for a central defender to play there," Mourinho said.
"Because central defenders, they don't (usually) have pressure from behind. They are pressed in their faces, not pressed from behind.
"In that position, you're surrounded by players. You have to think quick, you have to decide quick. It's very, very difficult, but our new Marcel Desailly, he worked hard during the week and did a fantastic job for us."
Comments
Comments are closed.