Delayed Women’s FA Cup final promises to be a sign of what’s to come in Chelsea and Arsenal’s brewing rivalry

The FA via Getty Images
Malik Ouzia @MalikOuzia_3 December 2021

One team is trying to complete a treble in a season which, to all intents and purposes, finished six months ago. The other is looking to herald the arrival of a new manager with a trophy that should have been lifted long before he took charge.

Such are the peculiarities of this Sunday’s (but last season’s) Women’s FA Cup final, delayed by Covid, as Emma Hayes’ League Cup and WSL-winning Chelsea take on an Arsenal side who, under Jonas Eidevall, have already set out their credentials as genuine challengers to that dominance in the new campaign.

A seismic fixture in its own right this may be, but the final’s unusual, wintery occurrence (though it was played in November last year for similar reasons) makes it impossible not to view through the prism of what may be to come. A fixture which usually provides the season’s crescendo, could in fact act as a tone-setter for a rivalry that looks set to define it.

Just a point separates the London rivals at the top of the WSL, Arsenal having beaten Chelsea on the opening day of the season before allowing the gap to narrow when being held by Tottenham in the north London derby last month. Such is the quality between them that those two matches represent the only time either have dropped points.

Yet, despite their proximity in league terms, Eidevall recognises the size of the gap he is attempting to bridge after replacing Joe Montemurro in the summer - and the importance of seizing the chance to make a statement this weekend.

“It's two teams that are at very different stages,” he told Standard Sport this week. “They're the reigning champions in the WSL, Champions League finalists. I wouldn't say they're at the end of their project but they're a much more mature project that is now all about trying to maximise, getting trophies out of that.

“We are building something at Arsenal. We have a lot of quality, but we need to work every single day to develop and to get there. Therefore, I think we have everything to win going into an FA Cup final like this.”

As of midweek, more than 45,000 tickets had been sold, the domestic record attendance for a women’s game in England of 53,000 - set at Goodison Park in 1920 - still in sight.

That would be a welcome and timely boon. Last month’s Women’s Football Weekend did not offer the showpiece Premier League stadium fixtures of its inaugural edition in 2019, but the FA have since set out ambitious targets to treble average WSL crowds by 2024 and there is the small matter a home European Championship to come next summer.

More symbolically, the final also marks 100 years since the FA’s ban on women’s football at its clubs’ stadiums, and 50 since it was overturned.

The victors will be sure of holding onto the trophy for little more than five months, with the final set for May 12.

The cast-list is befitting of the occasion, a truly galactico affair that could feature five players who finished in the top-ten of voting for the women’s Ballon d’Or this week - Sam Kerr, Pernille Harder, Jessie Fleming and Fran Kirby from Chelsea and Vivianne Miedema from Arsenal.

Hayes bemoaned the timing of that award ceremony on Monday night, in the midst of an international break that left most of the world’s top female players unable to attend, but the cosmopolitan nature of both squads has added to the challenge faced by their coaches in preparing for this unorthodoxly-timed final.

Between them, the clubs have had players in action this week not only across all four corners of Europe, but in Australia, Mexico, Japan and South Korea. It has hardly been a conventional cup final build-up.

Neither will have much time to rest on any triumph after the event either, and not only because they face crunch Champions League games against Juventus and Barcelona in midweek.

The draw for the third round of this season’s FA Cup has already been made and the victors will be sure of holding onto the trophy for little more than five months, with the final set for May 12.

Do not bank against them both being back here again.

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