When Emma Hayes lost this trophy for the third consecutive time last March, mere months after announcing her departure from west London, few would have believed that it would take less than 12 months for Chelsea to be in this position, dominating the English game the way that they are.
But that is the job that Sonia Bompastor has done since arriving on these shores. 28 games, 28 undefeated. 26 wins, 2 draws, and not a loss to add to her CV.
Of course, Bompastor has been helped by the generous purse strings of the club, adding the likes of world-record signing Naomi Girma and two-time Champions League and Euros winner Keira Walsh to her ranks.
But she has also added self-belief and determination. They do not go down without a fight, which they demonstrated again here today, even without Girma and Walsh in their ranks.
‘From the beginning of the season we said that we are really ambitious,’ said Bompastor. ‘When we have the opportunity to win the first title that’s always really positive so I’m really happy for that reason, but I’m also really proud of my players.
‘The performance was not a great one but we found a way to win the game. City are a really good team, it was a tough game so we were expecting that. But we created some opportunities, some chances and we could score two goals, which was enough to win the game.’
Chelsea won the Women’s League Cup on Saturday by beating Man City 2-1 at Pride Park
Sonia Bompastor won her first trophy since replaced Emma Hayes as manager of Chelsea
Chelsea have now won the Women’s League Cup an impressive three times in five years
Chelsea captain Millie Bright summed up the impact Bomapastor has had after the match.
‘Our mentality is ruthless,’ Bright said. ‘We’ll defend for 90 minutes plus, we’ll fight for each other and we’ve got another gear to give.’
‘We’ve lost the last three finals and that’s haunted the players that have been here for a long time. It’s nice to finally take that step forward and break the curse.’
For City, they made the boldest gamble by sacking their head coach Gareth Taylor five days before this final, with former manager Nick Cushing coming in to take over until the end of the season.
Whether or not this will backfire will be told in 11 days’ time, when the last of these four consecutive meetings concludes with their Champions League quarter-final at Stamford Bridge.
The game wasn’t as straight-forward as Bompastor would have liked.
After Chelsea took an early lead through Mayra Ramirez, who capitalised on some haphazard City defending, the losing team fought their way back into the game, dominating possession and ending the half with 22 touches in the opposition box, to Chelsea’s seven.
Bunny Shaw was characteristically City’s major threat in attack, but Chelsea, aware of the Jamaican’s powers both aerially and with her feet, were quick to mark her out of the game.
Mayra Ramirez scored the opening goal of the game for Chelsea in only the eighth minute
Aoba Fujino equalised for Man City when she found the net 19 minutes into the second half
But Chelsea went on to win Saturday’s game thanks to a late own goal by Yui Hasegawa (left)
Chelsea came out fighting in the second half but City drew level with a wonderful strike from Japan international Aoba Fujino past Hannah Hampton.
Questions will be raised whether Hampton should have done better, but City got what they deserved after their sustained period of dominance in the first half.
Shaw should have given City the lead a few minutes later when she found herself one-on-one with Hampton, but she failed to direct her shot beyond the England international. Miedema had a go a few minutes later with a tame shot which was also palmed away by the Lionesses goalkeeper.
Fujino’s compatriot Yui Hasegawa undid all of City’s hard work less than ten minutes later, with an unfortunate own goal to restore Chelsea’s lead.
The goal had come as a result of some hard-earned work in the build-up from Lucy Bronze, who managed to poke the ball to substitute Aggie Beever-Jones, who laid it off for Mayra Ramirez.
The goal scorer squared the ball into the box, attempting to find the pass back to Beever-Jones, only for Hasegawa’s clearance to loop over her goalkeeper and into her net.
It was an unfortunate way to lose the lead, and an especially unfortunate way to lose the final.
But there has been a sense of inevitability following this Chelsea team since Bompastor took the reins, and the French coach will be relieved that the first available cup is already hers.