Reigning Women’s Super League champions Chelsea made a winning start to the new season, beating Aston Villa 1-0 at home. A goal from Johanna Rytting Kaneryd gave new manager Sonia Bompastor all three points in her first league game in charge.
The 44-year-old Frenchwoman left Lyon in the summer to take over from the new head coach of the US women’s national team, Emma Hayes.
“It was really nice to be home and feel the closeness of the fans to the team,” said Hayes at her post-match press conference. “It was a very special evening, especially with all the flags with my face on them! It was wonderful. I felt very welcome and will do my best to make the fans happy.”
Bompastor saw her side get off to a bright start, with winger Guro Reiten firing two shots just wide, but Villa also had a few chances of their own in an even first half.
Sweden’s Rytting Kaneryd gave Chelsea the lead in the 37th minute, darting from left to right across the box before taking the ball back to her left foot and curling a superb finish into the top left corner.
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Villa’s Rachel Daly almost equalised for her side early in the second half, but her arcing header from just inside the box rebounded off the top of the crossbar and was unstoppable.
The visitors looked much more robust than the team that finished seventh in the 12-team league last season, but struggled at times with Chelsea’s pressure and frequently lost the ball in their own half of the pitch.
Villa applied a lot of pressure in the closing stages and Daly came close again with a header from a corner, but Chelsea goalkeeper Hannah Hampton made a brilliant save and shortly afterwards her fellow goalkeeper Sabrina D’Angelo was able to prevent another goal and thus secure the win.
“It’s always important to start with a win. I was hoping that maybe we could score more goals and be more relieved. But everyone told me ‘welcome to the league’ and that’s why I came,” Bompastor told the BBC.
“The result is always important. I want my team to play good football. It’s never easy, but I want the players to have fun on the pitch and make the fans happy,” she added. “If you want to have fun, you have to be technically good and score a lot of goals. I just want my players to stick together and try to score some goals.”
