Mourinho praises Zouma, names every Chelsea player as Man of the Match

The tactical wrinkle that probably won the game for Chelsea was Mourinho deploying young Kurt Zouma as the holding, shielding midfielder in front of the standard back four.  With Nemanja Matić suspended and John Obi Mikel injured, the default option would've been to use a Ramires-Fàbregas midfield pairing, but José's not one to shy away from bold moves when they're most needed.

Mourinho on his Zouma decision: "I am very happy with myself today." #CFC

— Bridge News (@cfc_wale) March 1, 2015

As he definitely should be.  Zouma's main job was to shut down Christian Eriksen, and shut down Christian Eriksen he did.  Tottenham's danger man joins Sergio Agüero and Raheem Sterling in Zouma's sizable pockets.  Soon enough, it's going to be quite a party in there!

Q: Zouma did well in that new role ... Mourinho: 'Yes, [like] Marcel Desailly'

— Sam Wallace (@SamWallaceIndy) March 1, 2015

Lofty praise, to be sure.  Though perhaps we risk getting ahead of ourselves a bit.

Mourinho was quick to pay tribute to every other member of his Chelsea squad as well, including the ones who did not get to play today.

"My players were fantastic. Finals are not for playing they are for winning. We did not have problems. They had a couple of chances but nothing else. We knew we would be dangerous on the counter and we played like we should play a final."

"Man of the match? They are Thibaut Courtois and Filipe Luis, who played fantastic against Liverpool. Man of the match was Andreas Christensen who played well against Shrewsbury."

"There are more than John Terry because we are a team. I am proud of the guys."

-Jose Mourinho; source: Get West London

"I think about Matic, Filipe Luis and Oscar, the guys who didn't have a chance to play. I think about Schwarzer, Salah, Schurrle, all the guys that started the season with us, they are all winners."

-Jose Mourinho; source: Chelsea FC

Everything's awesome when you're part of the team.