As music blared out of the home team’s dressing room at Kingsmeadow after Chelsea had just come from behind to defeat Liverpool 2-1 and book their eighth FA Cup final appearance in 13 years, Sonia Bompastor entered the media room and politely closed the door behind her.
The Chelsea manager was shutting out the noise, but can she really escape it? The word ‘quadruple’ is not going anywhere anytime soon.
Last month, Chelsea lifted the League Cup after a 2-1 win over Manchester City, which landed Bompastor her first trophy in England since taking over from Emma Hayes last summer. Chelsea then lost their only game of the season so far, against City when facing them in the first leg of the Champions League quarter-finals. Bompastor’s team reacted by putting on a show at Stamford Bridge to win 3-0 and set up a semi-final showdown with Barcelona next Sunday.
Bompastor has a quadruple within touching distance. Now, it is all about navigating the handful of games that stand between her team and a historic achievement.
In the Women’s Super League, Chelsea are the reigning champions. They are looking for a sixth title in a row and eighth overall. They look well on their way to accomplishing that as they hold a six-point lead over second-placed Arsenal with just four games to go. Their London rivals were actually the last and only English women’s team to be crowned European champions (Arsenal won the UEFA Women’s Cup, which is now the Women’s Champions League) and to have also won all three domestic competitions in a single season (2006-07).
Under Hayes — who was an assistant at Arsenal during that 2006-07 season — Chelsea dominated domestically but could never make the final step in Europe. They came closest in 2021 by reaching the final against next week’s opponents, Barcelona but were outmaneuvered 4-0 in Sweden.
Bompastor has the nous that could prove the difference for Chelsea in Europe. The Frenchwoman is the only manager in the women’s game to have won the Champions League as both a player and manager. She lifted the trophy twice with Lyon as a player, in 2011 and 2012, and then once as manager in 2022 by beating Barcelona 3-1 in Turin, Italy.
(Peter Nicholls/Getty Images)
Getting past Liverpool and reaching Wembley for the first time as a manager was the next thing ticked off the to-do list for Bompastor, who remembers representing France at England’s national stadium during the London 2012 Olympics.
Even amid her post-match excitement, Bompastor has a calm demeanour most of the time. When her team went 1-0 down, she looked reluctant to stress out her players, having instilled a belief in them that they are calm, controlled and capable of anything.
“When we conceded the goal, we just stuck to our principles,” Bompastor said. “We stayed strong, we tried to score, to come back into the game. We did that just before half-time (through Erin Cuthbert) and mentally it was important to score that goal at that moment. I told my players: we need to stick with the game plan. That was the right thing to do today. Keep the belief, go and try until the end.”
They listened. It was England international Aggie Beever-Jones who came up with the goods by scoring the winner in the fourth of eight minutes of stoppage time to break Liverpool’s resolve.
“She’s always said: ‘I want you to show what you can do, get on the ball,’” Beever-Jones told The Athletic. “She doesn’t ever want me to be scared, and I relate to that as well because sometimes as a young player you’re scared to make mistakes. She knows I’m a versatile player across the front line and I’m just happy she’s trusting me to hopefully show everyone what I can do.”
Beever-Jones says Bompastor’s calmness was put on hold at half-time as she tried “in a good way” to get her message across with a little more oomph.
“Sonia has a very good aura about her and about keeping the team calm,” Beever-Jones added. “We know the calibre of players we have. We have world-class players on the pitch, world-class players ready to come on to make an impact and we did that today.”
Now it is about doing that again for the remaining six (or potentially seven) games. But the first stop on the road to a quadruple is a trip to Barcelona. And Bompastor is not just well-versed in what that takes but already well-prepared. She spent the recent international break putting together an in-depth end-of-season plan: team by team, game by game.
For Liverpool’s visit, Bompastor, an elite tactician, knew interim boss Amber Whiteley’s side would look to catch Chelsea out in transition. That is exactly what happened for Olivia Smith’s excellent opener as midfielder Marie Hobinger hit a defence-splitting pass into Canada’s rising star as Liverpool took the lead.
Against Barcelona, even more danger will be afoot. But Bompastor, who has given her players two days off as a reward for reaching Wembley, will not rest in the next seven days. It will be back to fine-tuning the game plan and going over footage.
In the weeks ahead, the music in the dressing room might get louder and louder with every passing game because Chelsea are on their way to emulating Arsenal in an era when the women’s game is inherently more accessible and popular. Everybody needs to hear about it — and more than likely, everybody will.
(Top photo: Jacques Feeney/Offside/Offside via Getty Images)