After months of uncertainty the curtain was raised on a new season of women’s football as Chelsea drew first blood against a Manchester City side reduced to 10 players with an assured 2-0 win, sealed by a stunning long-range strike from the defender Millie Bright to mark Chelsea as the first Women’s Community Shield victors since 2008.
The last time the two teams faced off, on the final Women’s Super League match day before coronavirus changed everything, the match unfolded into a manic 3-3 draw that would ultimately define the season. Although City sat top of the league when it was curtailed and decided on points per game, Chelsea were only one point behind with a game in hand and were awarded the title.
Rust caked aspects of both teams’ games this time after six months without a competitive fixture, but the quality was always clear. Early on, Manchester City were vulnerable on the break and impotent in possession, but as Jill Scott and Caroline Weir began to enjoy more of the ball in midfield, their new signing Chloe Kelly flourished. She was the best player on the pitch in the first half, a debut performance marked by beating three Chelsea defenders in an astonishing run down the left. Later, her cool, low strike rebounded off a post.
But much of the game was the story of the Australian superstar Sam Kerr, who continually made the right runs and put herself in the perfect position in front of goal, but each time could not finish. Her failure to convert a one-on-one three minutes into the game set the tone as she simply could not score throughout.
On Kerr’s sixth missed opportunity of the afternoon the game transformed. Scott had slid into Ji So-yun during the buildup and was eventually handed her second yellow card. Chelsea’s shining attack, driven by Ji, Guro Reiten and Fran Kirby, who had not played since November after being diagnosed with pericarditis, jubilantly danced around the final third.
In the end, the deadlock was broken in a most unexpected way as Bright picked up the ball far outside the penalty area after another attack, took one touch and then belted it into the top corner. Chelsea controlled the rest of the game, eventually killing it off after a rebounded cross rolled into the path of Erin Cuthbert, who buried her strike to seal the victory.
And so a new season begins as the last one ended: with Chelsea pipping Manchester City to a trophy. Afterwards, the Chelsea manager, Emma Hayes, paid tribute to the long process that has culminated in Chelsea establishing themselves at the top.
“You have to remember, I’ve been here nine years. This hasn’t just happened,” she said. “This has taken some time to build and I am so lucky to have been given the trust by the club to build the players that have stuck with me in this process.”
It marks Hayes’s eighth trophy in her nine years and a third this year after winning the WSL and the FA Women’s League Cup. The rescheduled FA Cup quarter-finals will also be decided in the near future, along with five more trophies to compete for. There will be many more tussles to come.
“Regardless of the opponent, it’s a trophy and I wanted to win that trophy,” said Hayes. “The players know that I wanted to win it. I think City have a clear recruitment plan so that, by the time we play them the next time, their team will be even stronger than it was today. So, we can’t get carried away. We won today.”
