Sonia Bompastor claimed her first trophy as Chelsea Women manager as the Blues finally regained the Subway League Cup with a 2-1 victory over Manchester City.
Mayra Ramirez opened the scoring for Chelsea before City got one back from Aoba Fujino, but an own goal by City’s Yui Hasegawa saw Bompastor’s side triumph in Saturday’s final at Derby’s Pride Park.
Despite being finalists every year for the past five years, the League Cup has eluded Chelsea over the past three following their back-to-back triumphs in 2020 and 2021, but this victory kickstarted their hunt for the quadruple this season against a team they will meet three more times in the next ten days.
While it was a first taste of glory as Chelsea boss for Bompastor, opposite number Nick Cushing was previously city manager between 2013 and 2020, and found himself back in the dugout following the recent departure of Gareth Taylor.
The game started with a period of silence for Poppy Atkinson, a young aspiring women’s footballer who passed away earlier this month – an act which was echoed around the women’s game over the weekend.
Despite the game being played on a muddy surface barely befitting a showpiece final, it was all City on the attack for the first five minutes.
However, Chelsea managed to resist everything their rivals threw at them and then took the lead in the eigth minute after Lauren James played the ball into the middle of the box to put Ramirez one-on-one with the goalkeeper, and she finished by rounding the City stopper and tapping in after her initial shot was blocked.
An intervention from VAR, being used for the first time in this competition along with goal-line technology, to check for a possible offside led to the goal standing, although City were soon back on the offensive.
Shaw had several opportunities for City but was unable to capitalise on them, while Ramirez went close to adding to Chelsea’s tally before the half-time whistle sounded.
The second half again started with City being on the front foot, yet Chelsea were able to carve out opportunities too and saw Lucy Bronze booked after the referee deemed her to have dived in the box against her former club.
City finally got their reward in the 64th minute when Fujino rifled into the top corner with a powerful shot which left Chelsea goalkeeper Hannah Hampton with no chance.
Four minutes later, Hampton kept Chelsea in the game when made herself large enough to block Bunny Shaw’s shot in front of the goal, and Bompastor’s decision to introduce Aggie Beever-Jones and Maika Hamano in place of Catarina Macario and Johanna Rytting Kaneryd soon after paid off.
The two Chelsea subs made a clear impact on the game and it was Beever-Jones who provided the cross aimed at Hamano, following good build-up play by Bronze, which was turned into her own net by City’s Hasegawa.
Cushing rang the changes as well in a bid to get City back into the contest, but there was no denying Chelsea as they went on to claim the League Cup for a third time.
The teams will quickly renew acquaintances when they meet in Wednesday’s Women’s Champions League quarter-final first leg, followed by the second leg next week which sandwiches Sunday’s Women’s Super League meeting between them in Manchester.
Picture credit: Free to use from Unsplash
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