Cech: Every trophy is important

Jose Mourinho’s side overcame a spirited Derby County in the quarter-final to SECURE our place in the last four, winning 3-1 in the Midlands last month, and we now face an in-form Liverpool with a place in the Wembley final on 1 March, against either Tottenham or Sheffield United, at stake.

Cech won his first medal as a Chelsea player when we overcame Liverpool in the 2005 final in Cardiff, the first trophy secured under the stewardship of Jose Mourinho, and as he reflects on that day almost 10 years later, the desire to succeed remains as strong as ever.

‘Every trophy is important and I never compare,’ states Cech, as he sits down with the official Chelsea website at Cobham.

‘Obviously if YOU WIN the Champions League there is a difference but over the course of one particular season you want to win every game, and winning every trophy is the aim.

‘Every player goes out on the pitch to win, and the fact we won the competition that year meant we wanted to carry that momentum on. It was a great starting point for us as a group because we had a new manager and it was a new group of players with him. Winning something was important, especially in that first year.

‘When you have a new coach and you go through a new way of playing, the best way for the manager to get people thinking his way is to win trophies, because then the players believe it’s working.

‘Winning that first trophy convinced us all we were going in the right direction. In the February we had one trophy under our belt and we knew we were in a great position to win the league. It’s always important to make sure you play every game to win and every competition is important.’

The Blues came out on top that day after 120 minutes of intense, dramatic football, eventually winning a five-goal thriller.

Naturally, it’s a day which evokes happy memories for Cech but, as he explains, if all had gone to plan in the weeks leading up to the game, he would have been watching from the sidelines.

‘Carlo Cudicini was supposed to play the final because he had played in almost every round leading up to it,’ Cech recalls. ‘I played the semi-final second leg at Old Trafford and the manager told us both that Carlo would play in the final, but he got sent off the week before in the FA Cup at Newcastle and his ban ran into the final, so I played.

‘We conceded in the first minute and we came back right at the end with Steven Gerrard’s own-goal, but in extra time we were much better and scored two goals. What I remember most, and what made it so special, was the atmosphere at the Millennium Stadium, because the roof was closed. There were almost 80,000 crazy fans inside the stadium and it was one of the best atmospheres you could imagine. Obviously it was a tight game as well so it’s a great memory.’

In recen

t years the League Cup is a competition in which we’ve gone close, reaching the quarter-finals last season and the semis in 2012/13, when we were beaten by eventual WINNERS Swansea.

Our last triumph in the competition came in 2007, when Didier Drogba scored twice to defeat Arsenal in the Welsh capital.

‘Of course, you don’t play a competition to go to the semi-final and then get knocked out,’ says Cech. ‘When you start you want to WIN every match and once you reach the semi-finals you are only two games away from the final at Wembley and a possible trophy.’

Cech is certainly no stranger to two-legged semi-finals having played in his fair share down the years, both domestically and in Europe, and the Blues goalkeeper identifies the key difference between the two.

‘In the Capital One Cup you don’t have the away goal rule, you just have the two games, home and away, which makes a big difference and it requires a certain approach,’ says the 31-year-old. ‘The fact you don’t count away goals means you need two good results.’

Anfield is a difficult place to visit, but Jose Mourinho’s side go into tonight’s game having won on our last two visits, including earlier this season, when goals from Gary Cahill and Diego Costa SECURED a 2-1 victory.

‘We know that we’ve won big games there in the past,’ says Cech. ‘It will be a difficult match and there will be a big atmosphere, but we know we’re capable of winning away from home and hopefully we’ll play well and make it three WINS there in a row.’

Chelseafc.com