SOCCER/Manchester Utd v Chelsea:While the rest of the world waits to discover what sort of chant Manchester United's terrace choirmasters can devise to celebrate Jose Mourinho's misadventures with a Yorkshire terrier called Gullit, the members of the Chelsea squad will be reminding each other that the FA Cup is the one major trophy in English football that only one of them - Ashley Cole, formerly of Arsenal - has won.

And that, of course, includes Mourinho, for whom a victory over United today, in the new Wembley's first showpiece event, would complete the set of English domestic laurels acquired since his arrival from Portugal.

So yet again, at a moment of high drama, Mourinho has found a way of drawing attention to himself. It is three years this week since he reacted to Porto's victory in the European Cup by stuffing his winner's medal in his pocket and making a highly public retreat to the dugout, where he sat with his children while his players celebrated across the pitch at the Arena AufSchalke, thus intensifying the rumours of his imminent departure for Chelsea. Since then we have grown accustomed to his theatrics, from the hurling of his second Premiership winner's medal into the Stamford Bridge crowd to the ostentatious march across to the blue-shirted fans at the Emirates Stadium on the day they lost the title a fortnight ago.

In between have come his unseemly feuds with Frank Rijkaard, Arsene Wenger, Graham Poll, Andriy Shevchenko, Rafael Benitez and even Alex Ferguson, to whom he cosied up during his early days in England. If some managers leave a trail of sulphur in their wake, Mourinho exudes such quantities of noxious vapour that it can obliterate everything else.

Sometimes, no doubt, that is the object of the exercise, although he extends the principle of "taking the pressure off the players" to a point at which they begin to seem like extras in his biopic. And while it seems unlikely that the arrival of the police on the doorstep of his Belgravia residence was self-contrived, it has nevertheless kept up his tradition by earning him more column inches than John Terry, Didier Drogba, Frank Lampard, Joe Cole, Petr Cech and Michael Essien put together in the week leading up to what should be the biggest day in English football's calendar.

Although he likes to give the impression that nothing matters in his world beyond the pursuit of his personal and professional ambitions, Mourinho can hardly be insensible to the significance of today's tribal rite. The opening of the new Wembley, with its 900 food outlets and its 2,600 lavatories, is meant to indicate both a confirmation of the health of the English game and some sort of rebirth. And for the vast majority of the present generation of players at Stamford Bridge, the FA Cup remains an unfulfilled ambition.

"If we can do it," Lampard said this week, "it will fill the gap."

His understatement barely disguised the feelings that English players still have about the 135-year-old competition, the model for every subsequent knockout tournament. Whether it means as much to foreign players and a foreign coach, to whom success in the European Cup represents a much more significant ambition, is harder to assess.

"We're excited about the game," Drogba observed, stoking up his enthusiasm, "but a final will only be good if you win. I've won a lot of finals but I've lost a lot as well and it's always painful to lose. You always remember when you lose a final. I haven't won the FA Cup in my three years in England and, as a competitor, I want to win it."

Then, however, Africa's player of the year added a significant rider: "It's been a successful season for me personally, but I'd be happy to give back everything I've won individually to win back the Premiership and win the Champions League."

Seven years ago, in the last final at the old Wembley, John Terry and Carlo Cudicini spent the afternoon on the bench as unused understudies - in Terry's case, to Marcel Desailly and Frank Leboeuf, and in Cudicini's, to Ed de Goey, although both were awarded winners' medals. Today, Terry will lead out the side while Cudicini is scheduled to spend another afternoon on the sidelines, this time watching Cech wear the number one jersey.

Terry, Cudicini and Lampard all appeared in the second of Cardiff's half-dozen finals, in 2002, when Chelsea went down 2-0 to Arsenal.

"I thought I did okay," Lampard said this week. "I remember it, but no one else does because we lost. That's the thing about finals. You can have a good game and win your personal battle, but the most important thing is who lifts the trophy at the end. That's a fact of life."

Lampard watched his father take part in the cup as a long-serving West Ham full back and, later, the club's assistant manager, although he was not quite two years old when Frank Sr played in the Hammers' 1-0 win over Arsenal in the 1980 final. "I grew up with FA Cup days at Wembley, the whole build-up to the game and the game itself. All the English lads have that special feeling. But I've not had any glorious personal memories. Hopefully they're still to come."

But, Mourinho being Mourinho, the post-game conversations this evening will be largely dominated by the effect of the result on his immediate future. If he secures a second trophy to show for the season's work, will Roman Abramovich decide to keep him? If he fails, will not even two championships and a runner-up medal in three years be enough to prolong his stay?

In which case, little Gullit will be needing that pet passport.

Guardian Service