ESPN FC’s Craig Burley recaps Chelsea’s dominant performance against Tottenham on their way to claiming the Capital One Cup trophy.
LONDON — Roman Abramovich hasn’t always had a lot of luck with his big money strikers at Chelsea. Signed for the first time 11 years ago, Didier Drogba was clearly a palpable hit, while Fernando Torres offered mostly misses for 50 million pounds. Andrei Shevchenko was another crushing disappointment who never seemed more than a fraction of the player he had once been.
Mateja Kezman, Adrian Mutu, Hernan Crespo. For one reason or another, none of them enjoyed the success their price tag implied. But with Diego Costa, that losing streak of strikers has been emphatically ended.
Fittingly, it was Drogba who first congratulated Costa as he replaced him deep into injury time, nodding with huge approval and patting his colleague heartily on the back. The Ivorian knows that the torch has been passed but it’s hard to imagine a more worthy successor. There are many differences in the style of the two men but they share the same ferocity. No defender has ever seen their names on the teamsheet without grimacing in recognition of what would await them.
There were many heroes in Chelsea’s team at Wembley. Kurt Zouma, new to Chelsea and new to England, was brave to take on the defensive midfielder role for the first time, especially in a cup final; while he seemed unsure in the first half, he grew in stature after the break. John Terry offered another indomitable performance at the back, but it was Costa’s 56th minute strike that ended Tottenham Hotspur’s Wembley resistance in one stroke.
From that moment on, it was a perfect game for Jose Mourinho. A two-goal cushion, a heartbroken opponent and absolutely no reason in the world to rush. Spurs were trapped and they knew it. But Costa brings so much more than goals. He brings trouble. The sort of trouble Chelsea have been crying out for.
Costa is a menace. He’s nasty, he’s ruthless and he doesn’t care what you think of him. If he wasn’t a footballer, he would be the man who played music through the speakers of his phone on the quiet carriage of a train. He’d be the sort of monster who would cut his toenails at his desk. He’d have no compunction about cutting his toenails at your desk, either, and you’d probably let him because you’d be scared of him. In short, he’s the stand-out reason why Chelsea won the League Cup and why they will almost certainly win the league. He’s perfect for them.
Diego Costa put his menace, mindgames and crisp finishing to excellent use as Chelsea lifted the Capital One Cup.
Without a trophy to their name since their League Cup victory over Chelsea in 2008, Tottenham had actually started the better of the two teams. Eric Dier dealt with Costa well initially, while his teammates found room to gallop on the flanks. Had they held their composure, it might have been a different story. But it’s hard to stay calm when Costa is in your midst.
A Costa hand pushed in the face of Nabil Bentaleb sparked angry scenes. A retributory swipe by Kyle Walker merely intensified the rage. Three minutes later, Dier clattered in on Costa and sent him sprawling, earning a yellow card for his efforts. If they were cartoon characters, you would have seen the faces of the Spurs players filling up with red, steam puffing out of their ears. Mourinho and Costa both know that mistakes are made when anger descends and Spurs were furious. Costa is as much a psychological weapon as he is a goal-scoring force.
JOSE MOURINHO’S HONOURS LIST
Porto: Primeira Liga (2003, ’04), Portuguese Cup (2003), UEFA Cup (2003), Champions League (2004), Portuguese Super Cup (2003)
Chelsea: Premier League (2005, ’06), FA Cup (2007), League Cup (2005, ’07, ’15), Community Shield (2005)
Inter Milan: Serie A (2009, 2010), Italian Cup (2010), Champions League (2010), Italian Super Cup (2008)
Real Madrid: Primera Division (2012), Copa del Rey (2011), Spanish Super Cup (2012)
John Terry opened the scoring moments before half-time before Costa closed it shortly before the hour. Tottenham, for all their possession, were restricted to only two shots on target. It was classic Mourinho, but Mourinho can only achieve this if he has the players whose mentality matches his own and Costa’s arrival has been critical. Torres wasn’t hard enough. Samuel Eto’o wasn’t swift enough and Demba Ba wasn’t good enough. Costa makes the grade in all three disciplines.
Diego Costa got under the skin of Tottenham’s defenders early and often, a key element in Chelsea’s eventual win.
Mourinho preferred to praise others in the team, most notably Zouma, to whom the honour of the label “our own Marcel Desailly” was afforded after the match. On Costa, typically he first said that his striker needed the team and that without the team, he would find life difficult. But with that necessary platitude out of the way, the plaudits were duly delivered.
“He needs to keep his nature as a person and his nature as a player,” Mourinho said of the striker. “Today, he played a final at the top his motivation, at the top of his aggression and with no yellow card because he did nothing to get a yellow card.” Bentaleb and his teammates may have cause to disagree.
“Diego has to be Diego,” he continued, “with the education he is having, to feel the differences between playing in a Latin country and plating in this country. I think he is doing that very, very well for us.”
You won’t find any argument in West London. And after today, even the Lilywhite sector of North London would be forced to agree.
Iain Macintosh is a writer for ESPN FC and editor of @thesetpieces. Follow him on Twitter @IainMacintosh.