FA Cup Final Overview: Chelsea Dominates Manchester United
Imagine being Sonia Bonpazar and your Chelsea team is striving for a 3-0 victory in the FA Cup final, aiming for an unbeaten domestic season with a remarkable run of 30 games across League, Cup, and League Cup. The atmosphere at Wembley is electric, filled with victory blue flags waving proudly. Meanwhile, Manchester United seems to shuffle around the pitch like characters in an awkward reality TV show. What do you do next?
If you’re Bonpazar, you choose to make a triple substitution in the 93rd minute. Cam Gro Layten, Scheke Nyusken, and Johanna Litting Kanelid come on. Just because, well, why not? It’s not every day you can bring on players with 198 international caps and 14 league titles to close out a Cup final you’ve already won. It’s a unique flex, really—a celebratory lap, tipping a waiter just because you can afford to.
The final score truly reflected Chelsea’s comfort and dominance. The match felt fair from start to finish. After all, Aggie Beiver-Jones had scored the winning goal against Liverpool just weeks prior. And when Serena Williams made her appearance in the Royal Box with her husband, a Chelsea co-owner, it added a touch of star power to the event. There was perhaps a bit of rudeness toward Jason Wilcox—maybe just a hint of disregard—but it’s tough for United to compete with that kind of celebrity presence.
Maybe Sir Jim Ratcliffe had other commitments that kept him from attending, or perhaps there’s an intentional distance between United’s co-owners and this particular match. Whatever the case, it didn’t seem like they were eager to be there.
United came into the game with a strategy that, while perhaps aiming to impress, felt like surrender. Dominique Jansen and Ella Tone were meant to offer security, but Chelsea wasn’t fazed by it. Maybe Barcelona’s tactics in the Champions League could have provided some wisdom—keeping the ball, disrupting momentum—but United didn’t latch onto that.
Instead, they tried to get up close and personal, making aggressive tackles and disrupting Chelsea’s flow. For a short while, that approach paid off. Twice in the opening 20 minutes, Serin Bisette had Erin Cuthbert on the run. But as the match progressed, Chelsea found their rhythm, and United began to falter. Locking Chelsea out for an extended period turned out to be an uphill battle—akin to avoiding lions while draped in steak fabric. Maya Le Tissier and Millie Turner needed to be on their game, which, as it turned out, they were not. What began with a slip-up from Bisette evolved into a penalty, which Sandy Baltimore stepped up to take, leading to a sequence of unraveling for United on a familiar afternoon.
Interestingly, former US goalkeeper Ashlyn Harris had some words this week about aiming to be exceptional in a world full of mediocrity. It made waves, as she distanced herself from average folks in a recent, albeit cringy, podcast chat. Bompastor, while more composed, hinted at that same sentiment in an interview, imploring rivals to catch up—though one must wonder, what does that really entail when it comes to Chelsea?
To catch up, other teams might need to find their own Champions League-winning managers, invest in world-class defenders, or seek out their own billionaire benefactors. It sounds simple, but the reality? The window for early movers has closed; Chelsea took that leap first and set the standard.
United, in contrast, seems consumed with trivialities like saving money on holiday parties rather than making significant investments in their roster or management. What changes might occur if Ratcliffe indeed chooses to rise above average expectations? That’s hard to predict.
Cuthbert expressed her frustrations at full time, pointing out that, despite perceptions, Chelsea’s success is anything but easy. It becomes easier over time—there’s a sort of curse that comes with excellence, one that can unfortunately undermine the great achievements made. Both admiration and concern seem to coexist: we ought to applaud Chelsea’s accomplishments but also hope that someone emerges to challenge them soon.
