They say that good things come for those who wait.
Patience and perseverance are two principles of Sonia Bompastor values after having taken the time to learn the art of coaching in Lyon's Academy System before he accepts the first team, and ultimately accept a carefully selected opportunity to manage in the Super League of the Women's Super League.
But none of them was needed during her first year that was in charge of Chelsea. This season was an exhibition of inevitability of the ruling champions. A memory of anyone who suggested that their crown could slip after the end of the Emma Hayes era that the established hierarchy is no less immobile.
It happened again. The blues have another collector item for the trophy cabinet. The only difference is that they have won this year with games to save. No Jeopardy-filled final for Bompastor-Ze is the track ready earlier than even the big Hayes in her last three title-winning campaigns.
Very little of this season has been Nip and Tuck. That way it felt different, maybe even surprising. It is as if Arsenal, Manchester United and Manchester City have been beating on the door for so long that it started to open, only for bombastor to hit mercilessly. The sign with the lecture “closed for business”.
Earlier years have taken for sure that the idea that Chelsea can be dethroned for much longer. Hayes herself gave the title famous after he had lost Liverpool late in her last season: “It is not. I don't think the title is more,” she said, before she just obscured Man City about goal difference. It felt mean, but that is the name of the game.
Chelsea doesn't care who they trample on their way to silverware as long as they arrive there. Such insatiable hunger is hard to find – maintained much less as long. Pure, ruthless desire is a constant, re -conceived over the years but always present. It is the hand that feeds this title -winning machine over and over again.
And yet nobody predicted that such an inexpensive approach would transfer to Bompastor's Chelsea so quickly. How could they? People spoke about a period of transition. A kind of recess. Some between the time the French woman, who has never coached abroad before, gets to her environment and the team that she inherited is introduced to their new leader.
Bompastor has shattered that pretension.
This is simply inexorable Chelsea 2.0, more patiently in possession, but still able to impose itself in the same exhaustive way that each Hayes team did. A unit in which each part exactly performs its role, all tailored to the same 'victory free of charge' attitude.
But this, their six -fold, is just as impressive as problematic for the WSL and his attempt to stay competitive. How do rivals become challengers again? Arsenal fell at the last obstacle in 2021-22. Man United suffered the same fate and Man City recently the next year. The cycle of domestic dominance – Europe remains frustrating out of reach – is so infallible that faith defies.
Strange, then that very few Chelsea players have been on its own leaders this season. No best-in-class artists of the best show in the city-Hoe can that be? It seems strange that most of the highest -performing individuals of eighth of the WSL play for other clubs.
There are a few from bijters, but this newest title was not about excellent solo acts when the unparalleled Fran Kirby led the show in 2020-21 or when Sam Kerr set 20 goals in the way to the Golden Boot in 2021-22. Or when the Maverick quality of Lauren James led last year's conquest.
The story of this season has been much more nuanced. Finding the exceptional one in the unusual is something that only Chelsea is capable of.
Defensively, Lucy Bronze is the only player who is prominent in one of the categories used to measure defensive firmness. She is in second place for interceptions behind Ash Neville from Tottenham. No Chelsea player in the top five is mentioned for tackles, approvals, possessions won or blocked shots.
The clean plate record of Hannah Hampton (11) is impressive, but not as Phallon Tullis-Joyce by Grand Man United (13)-Refrest the best-performing goalkeeper in the competition this season. Tullis-Joyce is at the top of the graphs for the number of goals that were also prevented.
Offensing, Chelsea's top scorers aggie Beever-Jones and Guro Reiten have eight goals per piece, and they rank fifth behind Shekiera Martinez (West Ham), Elisabeth Terland (Man Utd), Alessia Russo (Arsenal) and Khadija Shaw (Man City). Beever -Jones is placed in the same way for shots on Target (17) – What is the same number that Man City Vivianne Miedema has posted after missing half of the season with injury.
Johanna Rytting Kanyd places fifth for the created opportunities (33) but is miles from Arsenal's Katie McCabe (45) and Marie Hobinger van Liverpool (38). The Chelsea wing player has touched the ball 116 times in the opposition box, with teammate Mayra Ramirez just behind (114), but it is Russo (133) who is top, while all passing statistics are dominated by Man City and Arsenal players.
Those figures will feel relatively unimportant when wearing a WSL winner medal, except to emphasize a clear theme. With Superstar Striker Kerr who brought offside the entire season with an ACL injury and James who only manages Six League Starts, Chelsea had to rely on collective smart. Involve a pack mentality. And that does not mean winning a title that plays anti-football ball, because some versions and results are excited.
But their power was most sharp in the power of the team, as the team with the best cumulative talent pool across the board – depth beyond the wildest imagination of other WSL sides. Replacements with their substitutes. Solutions for every problem.
At the end of March, Sky Sports spoke after he returned to beat Man City of two goals in the Champions League, Bompastor said: “I told my players that you have different statuses.
'Sometimes you start the game. Sometimes you will not be in the team. Sometimes you will be a finisher. And whatever status you have, you are here to help the team. It's about the club, the team and what we achieve together. “
Very few WSL managers have a fraction of that luxury neither the bullishness to use every centimeter of it. Bompastor, who described this title as “unexpected”, has squeezed and shaped her team, poking with every imperfection and demanded more. In their own country they have hardly thrown together. The Treble is very handy.
And so here we have the largest women's football team ever, already in the field of virtually inviolable, with the potential and means to become even bigger.
*Data correct from April 29 (contained no statistics from games played on April 30)