Carra Hoping For Carling Cup Victory

By Kate7
March 1 2005

The Reds meet Chelsea in the Carling Cup final on Sunday, and Jamie Carragher is hoping this will be the start of Rafael Benitez’s trophy winning career at Anfield.

Though Liverpool are underdogs, Chelsea have lost their last two matches and maybe aren’t as strong as they first appeared to be. Admittedly, both those matches saw Chelsea finish the game with less than eleven men but it certainly showed they aren’t unbeatable.

Carra told Liverpoolfc.tv: "It will be brilliant for the manager if he can win a major trophy in his first season. There's no doubt he is going to be here for a long time and I'm sure he'll win a lot of trophies, so the sooner he wins the first one then the better because he can get that monkey off his back very quickly.

"When Gerard Houllier won his first trophy it kicked the team off on a run of winning finals and we would want the same to happen again. I'm sure that if we win on Sunday then it will stand us in good stead for the rest of this season and for the competitions we enter next year.

"We've had a big confidence booster this week with the victory over Leverkusen and if we can win on Sunday as well then we'll be in a great position to do well over the remainder of the season in the Premiership and Champions League.

"We've a number of Spanish players at the club now who have never played in Cup Finals in England before. If they get the taste of winning trophies here then it'll definitely whet their appetites for much more of the same in the future.

"We're not taking anything for granted though. We can talk about winning a major trophy this weekend but we have a very good team to beat first and it's not going to be easy."

Liverpool supporters will be travelling to Cardiff in their thousands this weekend for the SIXTH time since the major cup finals were switched to the Welsh capital.

The Millennium Stadium has so far proved to be a happy hunting ground for the Reds and Carragher is hoping they'll be celebrating their fifth trophy success in just four years this weekend.

He said: "I've been fortunate enough to play in a number of finals over the past few years and I can't wait for this game on Sunday.

"People may mock the Carling Cup but at the end of the day there's a winners medal up for grabs and a major final to play in. In football you never know when you're going to play in your last final so you should always enjoy them when they come along.

"I think teams are taking the competition seriously anyway. We played our strongest team in both legs of the semi final with Watford while Manchester United and Chelsea both fielded their best sides for their semi final.


"Liverpool against Chelsea is always going to be a massive game, whatever the competition. The last time we played in this final we were up against Manchester United and that was a great occasion as well.

"A Cup Final is a Cup Final and we badly want to win on Sunday. We know it's going to be difficult because Chelsea are the best team in the country at the moment and the league table says we're only the fifth best, but we know that on our day we can bridge that gap and beat them.

"There's no doubt we should have beaten them at Anfield in the league. The minimum we deserved was a draw and we can take a lot of confidence from that performance. We should have had a penalty and their goal was fortunate in that it took a slight deflection off me. Hopefully we'll get some of the luck going our way in Cardiff."

And if Liverpool do upset the odds and emerge triumphant on Sunday afternoon Carragher insists the travelling Kopites shouldn't reserve all of their praise and cheers just for the squad members on duty on the day.

"The Carling Cup has been a real squad effort this year," he said. "If we win it then I think most of the credit will have to go to the younger lads who did so well in the early stages of the competition.

"They knocked out a couple of Premiership teams and enjoyed a great run and it'll be important that they don't get forgotten about in the celebrations if the first team win the final."

So how does Carra think the game will pan out once referee Steve Bennett sounds the first whistle at 3pm on Sunday afternoon?

"Chelsea's games are often tight affairs and I can't see this one being any different," he said. "I think it'll be a very close match with maybe just the one goal in it. Hopefully it goes our way on the day."