'Finals are not for playing, they are for winning'
Sunday 26 February 2017 21:31, UK
Jose Mourinho built on his impressive cup final record when Manchester United beat Southampton in the EFL Cup showpiece on Sunday.
The 54-year-old has now won 11 out of 13 cup finals since 2003 - a feat which has seen him pick up silverware at Porto, Chelsea, Inter Milan, Real Madrid and now Manchester United.
And with eight league titles and five Community Shield/Super Cup victories to his name, Mourinho boasts a career haul of 24 trophies following the EFL Cup final victory.
From European success to a perfect record in England, we take a look at how Mourinho has won 85 per cent of the finals he has managed…
Mourinho has never lost a final in normal time.
His two losses have only come in extra time - firstly in a 2-1 defeat to Benfica in the 2003 Taça de Portugal final, and more recently a Copa del Rey defeat to Atletico Madrid in 2013.
In total, six of Mourinho's 13 cup finals have gone into extra time and he has won four of those.
Five finals, five victories for Mourinho in England. Mourinho's first English trophy came in 2005, with Mateja Kezman's 112th-minute winner handing Chelsea a 3-2 victory over Liverpool after a Steven Gerrard own goal took the game to extra-time.
Two more domestic cups followed in 2007 - a feisty 2-1 victory over Arsenal in the League Cup final in February and a 1-0 FA Cup victory over Manchester United three months later.
The run continued into Mourinho's second spell at Chelsea, as a 2-0 win at the expense of Tottenham handed him a third League Cup trophy. Victory over Southampton saw him equal Sir Alex Ferguson and Brian Clough's record of four.
Mourinho has won three continental trophies, including two Champions Leagues and, despite failing to win Europe's greatest prize with Chelsea or Real Madrid, he boasts a perfect record in European finals.
The first trophy to make its way into Mourinho's cabinet was the UEFA Cup.
Henrik Larsson's double for Martin O'Neill's Celtic was not enough in the 2003 final in Seville, with Derlei's extra-time winner handing Porto a 3-2 victory.
Porto went on to shock the continent by lifting the Champions League a year later, knocking out Manchester United 3-2 on aggregate in the last 16 before completing a resounding 3-0 victory over Monaco in the final.
A move to Chelsea came just one week after this European success for Mourinho, and it was a similar story six years later as he took the helm at Real just days after guiding Inter to Champions League glory, which had handed the Italians an unprecedented treble.
"Finals are not for playing, they are for winning," said Mourinho, after his previous EFL Cup triumph in 2015 - and it's a mantra which has guided the manager to near-unrivalled success.
Prior to Sunday his teams had conceded just nine goals in 12 finals - including seven clean sheets - and while United let two in against Saints the trend for winning tight games continued. Just three of his final wins have come with a margin greater than one goal.
Like the man who won him this latest trophy, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Mourinho is a proven winner. And with United involved in two more cup competitions this season, final number 14 might not be too far away.
