Pellegrini savours League Cup success in England

Manuel Pellegrini claimed his first trophy as Manchester City manager as his side came from behind to beat Sunderland 3-1 in the League Cup final at Wembley Stadium.

London – The Chilean´s team looked in trouble at half-time when they trailed 1-0 to Italian Fabio Borini´s superbly taken tenth-minute goal.

However, whatever Pellegrini said at half-time had the desired effect as the Citizens came out with all guns blazing in the second half. Yaya Toure curled a sweet shot into the top corner from 25 yards to level things up in the 54^th minute and almost immediately Samir Nasri cracked the ball home to put City 2-1 up and leave Sunderland shell-shocked.

At the death, City wrapped things up when the influential Toure teed up Jesus Navas to fire in the third.

A delighted Pellegrini said: “It´s very important to win the first trophy and I´m very happy. Sunderland played very well and the game was very difficult, but we scored two beautiful goals to turn things around.

“Top players decide games and we worked very well as a team. The team deserved it because we have played well throughout the tournament and we´ve scored a lot of goals.”

With the first piece of silverware in the trophy cabinet, Pellegrini can now look to win more important honours – and perhaps even an unprecedented domestic treble.

City are in a four-way fight for the Premier League title with Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal and are also through to the FA Cup quarter-finals, where they will meet Wigan, the team that shocked them in last season´s final.

City are also still in the Champions League, though they have a mountain to climb after losing 2-0 in the first leg of their last 16 tie against Alexis Sánchez´s Barcelona.

The 60-year-old former Real Madrid and Malaga boss added: “We have to continue fighting for the other trophies and I hope we continue in the same way.

“We are the only club with the chance to try to win all the competitions. We are going to try although we know it´s not easy.”

In an extensive managerial career, Pellegrini had already won trophies with Universidad Católica (Chile), Liga Universitaria de Quito (Ecuador), San Lorenzo, River Plate (both Argentina) and Villarreal (Spain).

Tags: Football, Manchester City, Manuel Pellegrini