Sonia Bompastor highlighted the resilience of her Chelsea side after the Blues came from behind to secure a historic victory over Wolfsburg to seal our place in the UEFA Women's Champions League quarter-finals.
Against a side that had never previously lost to English opposition at home, Bompastor's side could have collapsed after going behind to a goal from Alexandra Popp after 16 minutes, but instead we fought back and recorded the win we needed to seal a place in the last eight.
'I’m really proud of my players,' said the Blues head coach afterwards. 'We knew this game would be really tough. We know the quality Wolfsburg have in their squad collectively as a team, but also individually.
'The statistic from before the game was that no English club has ever won here before, so we are the first one. It just shows how difficult it is to do. To get the result in this ground shows our resilience, especially as we were losing the game 1-0, and we were able to reverse the situation with our quality and our belief, which is crucial.'
Wednesday evening's triumph means that Chelsea will avoid a two-legged playoff, and Bompastor was happy to have skipped this extra step not only to play two fewer matches, but also because the outcome of the playoff could not be guaranteed.
The league phase saw us record 6-0 wins over St Polten and Roma, as well as a 4-0 victory over Paris FC. The coach felt satisfied with our overall performances across the initial stage of the competition.
'It’s so important to avoid the play-offs in a really busy schedule,' said Bompastor. 'But also because when you have to play two more games, first of all, you don't know if you’re going to win them.
'So the good thing is we don’t have to play two more games, but also, we know we are already qualified directly to the quarterfinal. That's what we wanted to achieve coming here.
'If you look back at all the games we played in this campaign, I'm really proud of the results we got. I think we played some really good football in some of the matches. Today we were residents in our own half in the first 45 minutes. But we didn't concede more than one, and we found a way to reverse the situation, then score one more goal than the opposition.'
[Lucy Bronze](/en/teams/profile/lucy-bronze) was handed the UEFA Player of the Match award after the final whistle as she scored the crucial goal just before half-time, and also put herself on the line defensively as she made a number of vital interventions, including a goal-line clearance.
Bompastor indicated that the experienced Bronze is exactly the player she can rely on to step up on the biggest stage and put in the kind of display that directly affects the outcome of the match.
'When she’s playing at this level, it’s not the first time that Lucy has led by example, on the pitch and off the pitch,' he concluded. 'She helped the team to stay in the game and to believe it was possible to win. So I think she impacted the result and the performance, and I think she has the tools to do that.