The curse of the League Cup

Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho

Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho

Published Feb 26, 2017

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If winning the Premier League no longer guarantees a manager keeping his job, lifting the EFL Cup in any of its guises is positively a curse. 

Seven of the last 10 managers to have won the League Cup left their posts within a year — hardly a comfort to Jose Mourinho or Claude Puel as they battle on Sunday afternoon for the first trophy of the season.

Mourinho was sacked twice by Chelsea in the months that followed winning this competition. Juande Ramos, Kenny Dalglish, Alex McLeish, Michael Laudrup and Manuel Pellegrini also didn’t stick around long after Wembley triumph.

For all the success experienced by the Manchester United manager, building a dynasty isn’t among his achievements so far.

Hence his motivation to stay for the long term at Old Trafford and establish a legacy, something denied to him in his second spell at Chelsea when owner Roman Abramovich backed the players instead of their manager when the two sides fell out.

So Mourinho will forget the League Cup curse on Sunday afternoon and instead try to emulate the exception to the rule, Sir Alex Ferguson, who won the trophy four times without any detriment to his job prospects, most notably in 2006 when he used the final as a trigger for a sustained period of domination.

Comparisons with that final against Wigan Athletic are apt. United were a team in transition back then as well and were no match for Mourinho’s first Chelsea team in the league.

For the final, Ferguson gave a nod towards the future by dropping United’s talisman Ruud van Nistelrooy — a huge story at the time broken by The Mail on the Sunday — and pushing 20-year-old Wayne Rooney and Cristiano Ronaldo, 21, centre stage.

Man-of-the-match Rooney scored twice and Ronaldo once in a 4-0 United victory and Ferguson made a point of celebrating on the Wembley pitch as if it was the biggest prize he had ever landed. His new United side went on to win three consecutive Premier League titles and reach three Champions League finals in four years.

Now the circle may be completed with Rooney’s place under serious threat and younger players such as Paul Pogba and Eric Bailly hoping to win their first major honours for United, albeit aided by the amazing veteran Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who is defying time with 24 goals already this season.

For Mourinho, it would be an important first step in a journey he hopes will banish his reputation as a crash-and-burn manager. He has been building a mutually respectful rather than antagonistic relationship with Ed Woodward and the United owners.

He won the League Cup-Premier League double with Chelsea in 2014-15 but was sacked before the end of the year, a quicker fall from grace than even Claudio Ranieri.

‘The decision to choose the team, when to train, what time to train, when to give a day off, all these kinds of things are obviously my decisions and I don’t have to share with anyone,’ says Mourinho, keen to outline his role at United.

‘But the major decisions about the politics of the club, about the relations between the economical situation and the sports situation, obviously I am just somebody that works for the club and the club is controlled by the owners and the board. I am interested in building something, you are not wrong. I am happy, but I was happy at Chelsea, too, and one day they told me goodbye. That is part of football.

‘When I am happy in one place and think about staying for a long time, obviously it gives me a certain pathway, a certain direction to work. That is the way I am working, thinking I am going to stay for a long time.’

Friends say that Mourinho in his current state of mind would happily be at Old Trafford for the next 10 years and that he finds the working environment simpler than he encountered at Stamford Bridge.

But that dream will depend on results. A shock defeat by Southampton would not be helpful, but neither would it be terminal, with United still in the Europa League, FA Cup, and hot on the heels of a top-four finish in the Premier League. United have lost only one of their last 25 matches and their EFL Cup semi-final second leg defeat at Hull didn’t really matter as they qualified for Wembley.

Midfielder Juan Mata, whose late equaliser against Crystal Palace at Wembley helped United win the FA Cup final in May, says the team are more ruthless than when Louis van Gaal was in charge.

‘We have a different manager and three or four new players,’ says the Spaniard. ‘I think we sometimes played good football without getting the results [last season]. It’s happened this season as well but overall we are getting more results because we are being more ruthless in front of goal.

‘Zlatan doesn’t need to touch the ball a lot of times to score an important goal. He did it at Wembley in the Community Shield with a great header. And he is that kind of player who can decide important games. He has always done it.

‘Our win against Saint-Etienne on Wednesday is an example of being decisive. We scored with the first chance we had [Henrikh Mkhitaryan] and the tie was almost over.’

United beat Southampton earlier in the season on Pogba’s debut following his world-record £89 million move from Juventus.

Michael Carrick’s availability despite hurting his calf in France gives Mourinho the option of pushing Pogba forward into a No 10 role that would leave Rooney on the bench.

Mourinho says: ‘It is so difficult to win trophies in England. There are so many sharks trying to do it, it is always positive to win a cup.

‘I want to think about this final in an isolated way. The last game against Saint-Etienne doesn’t matter, the game after against Bournemouth doesn’t matter. Now it’s the final and we go with everything we have.’

Mourinho has an excellent record in finals and at Wembley itself, both old and new. He first visited in 1999 as Van Gaal’s assistant at Barcelona when they beat Arsenal 4-2, Pep Guardiola among the Barca players. In 2007, Mourinho’s Chelsea beat United 1-0 in the first FA Cup final at the new Wembley.

Mata’s memories are more recent. United were nine minutes away from losing to Palace in the last FA Cup final when he levelled from Rooney’s assist. Jesse Lingard then scored a spectacular winner in extra-time.

‘It shows anything can happen in a final and you have to try until the last minute,’ he said. ‘But we watched both of Southampton’s games in the semi-final against Liverpool and we know they are dangerous.

‘We’re reaching the crucial stage of the season and a win will boost our confidence. Every time you win a final, it’ is a happy day. When you touch silverware, it’s a very nice feeling.

‘Our fans have been amazing even in the bad moments so I can imagine what would happen if we won the Premier League or Champions League in the future.’

‘Sooner of later, Manchester United will be fighting again for the biggest trophies because of the power of the club, our supporters and the quality this club has.’

Poor Van Gaal knew within minutes of winning at Wembley that he was to be replaced by Mourinho. Regardless of the result today, Mourinho won’t suffer the same fate, but it might indicate whether he can build the 10-year dynasty that he craves.

The Independent

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