Chelsea won their sixth successive title at Leigh Sports Village on Wednesday
Millie Bright and Co will get the chance to better enjoy their success at Stamford Bridge in their last game of the 2024-25 season against Liverpool on May 10
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By TARA ANSON-WALSH
Published: 05:03 EDT, 2 May 2025 | Updated: 05:11 EDT, 2 May 2025
The full-time whistle blew at Leigh Sports Village and Chelsea’s celebrations began with less of a bang, and more of a gentle thud.
Sonia Bompastor turned around to her dugout with a smile on her face and shook the hands of her backroom staff before breakthrough 21-year-old striker and Cobham graduate Aggie Beever-Jones enveloped her in a hug. At this point, the French coach managed to afford herself a grin.
The rest of the team went off to celebrate in front of a small group of their travelling fans who had made the trip to the outskirts of Wigan on the balmy midweek evening, posing in front of a Champions 2024-25 board before they headed into the changing rooms to continue the after-party. Millie Bright wrote ‘six times baby, up the Chels’ on a tactics board while Niamh Charles and Wieke Kaptein led a line dancing class.
It was so unexpected that the Blues would win a record-extending sixth successive Women’s Super League crown on Wednesday night that the club didn’t even pack the champagne, with players dancing around a bottle of water at United women’s stadium in their socks instead.
First and foremost, Sonia Bompastor’s side have Aston Villa to thank (or berate) for this unexpected turn of events. Villa, relieved to be mathematically out of a relegation scrap after an underwhelming season, put in a performance of the season against second-placed Arsenal.
Seizing the opportunity to take advantage of a mentally and physically worn-down Gunners team after a busy weekend in the Champions League, Villa ending up netting five, the final score being 5-2. This left Chelsea with just a point needed against Manchester United to call themselves champions again.
Chelsea players danced around a water bottle in the changing rooms after their triumph
Chelsea needed just a point against Man United to retain their sixth successive WSL title - they ended up bagging three, with Lucy Bronze scoring the only goal of the game in the second half
Bompastor had opted to switch off her phone so she could focus on her own pre-match preparations, too nervous to keep an eye on the score in Birmingham 85 miles away.
Her staff made her aware of the full-time result before kick-off and the Chelsea boss chose not to mention it to her players, albeit acknowledging that in this digital age many would have been aware of the situation. She had no desire of telling her team that the job was already done.
Manchester United put on a resilient performance, and were probably the better team on the night, but as has often been the case this season, Chelsea found a way. Lucy Bronze sliced the tension emanating from the away dug-out when her darting header found the back of the net late in the second half.
The full-time whistle blew and a mixture of relief and exhaustion looked to overwhelm the Chelsea players. After a relentless season, they had managed to do it again, and their domestic treble hopes were still alive.
Bompastor spoke after the game about how she had worked hard to get her team to refocus on the league after the disappointment of their Champions League defeat just three days prior.
They had invested hard over the season, breaking the world record on USA defender Naomi Girma – who is looking increasingly at home in blue – and seizing Lioness duo Keira Walsh and Lucy Bronze from Spain. But they had not only fallen short of their target in Europe, Chelsea had gone missing against Barcelona, losing 8-2 on aggregate, the shadow of which threatened to hang over the rest of their season.
‘I told them before the game (against United) that we started this season in mid-September, and that we are probably 90 minutes away from having a hand in the title, so make sure tonight we work really hard, the game will go fast, and make sure at the end we can just get the job done,’ the Chelsea boss said.
Perhaps the Chelsea players would have preferred an extra couple of days to get over their Barcelona hangover. Perhaps they too would have enjoyed playing this game at home in London, on a weekend, rather than on a Wednesday night on the outskirts of Wigan, where the after-party that faced them was a long drive back on the bus.
Bompastor chose not to tell her players the Arsenal result before kick-off at Manchester United
Bright wrote a message on the tactics sheet amid the post-match celebrations
Millie Bright takes a selfie in the changing rooms after the Blues secured the title
Bompastor spoke after the game about how she had worked hard to get her team to refocus on the league after the disappointment of their Champions League defeat just three days prior
Arsenal suffered a shock 5-2 defeat at Aston Villa to give Chelsea the upper hand in the WSL
Sonia Bompastor's side were beaten 8-2 by Barcelona on aggregate three days before their visit to Leigh Sports Village where they wrapped up their sixth consecutive title victory
But when all is said and done, Chelsea will get their party. If Chelsea do manage to lift the trophy at Stamford Bridge on the final game of the season having become the first team of the WSL era to produce an unbeaten 22-game ‘invincible’ season, there cannot be any escaping the fact that this is one of the most formidable empires in women’s footballing history.
Of course, criticism of the single-side domination of the women’s game will always threaten to cast a shadow over their achievements, but for now those can wait, especially because they threaten to undermine the success of Bompastor herself.
She argued her own case for this after the win, clearly incensed by the running commentary throughout this season that this trophy was going to be handed to her on a plate.
‘When you come to Chelsea everyone expects you to win the league. It was the same when I was at Lyon but I think this league is more competitive,’ she said. ‘I think in Lyon, with the money the club invests, with the players, the differences between us and the other teams are bigger. To be able to achieve the title for six years in a row with Chelsea, in my first season with this club, it’s not easy.
‘I don’t take time to reflect a lot with myself because I’m always looking forward, but to come as a new manager into the league, to come as a foreign coach, to struggle a little bit with the language barrier and to be able to learn a lot about the club and everything in England, and to be able to achieve things, it’s been a high achievement.
‘I think today as English people, you should be proud to have a team like Chelsea but also to have Arsenal in the Champions League final.’
The champagne will soon uncork and Millie Bright and Co will get a chance to celebrate in front of their own fans while the rest of the league will go back to the drawing board, trying to figure out how they can finally knock this relentless side off their daunting perch.