It is a testament to the standard set at Chelsea that an unbeaten Women’s Super League season, a League Cup win and, should they triumph over Manchester United at Wembley in the Women’s FA Cup final on Sunday, a domestic treble will still not leave them satisfied.
“That’s what makes this environment and this team so special,” says Catarina Macario, who was viewed as so prodigious a talent that the London side signed her in June 2023 from Lyon even though she was yet to return from an anterior cruciate ligament injury. “We’re never satisfied with just winning, we want to be dominant in how we play and there’s definitely room for improvement in that. That’s something that we have to take into next season and know that this is what we need to work even harder on to be able to achieve every single one of our goals.”
The box that remains unticked is success in the Champions League, the club having beenknocked out of the competition by Barcelona, the team that bettered them in the 2021 final and now at the semi‑final stage for the third season in a row. Despite the frustration of their European ambitions going unfulfilled, the achievement of the team, the first to go unbeaten in the English women’s top flight since it was relaunched as the WSL in 2011, is remarkable. Not least because they have done it in a season of overhaul and change, when the club matriarch, Emma Hayes, departed, Sonia Bompastor arrived and the squad underwent something of an overhaul.
“It has been a positive season, this having been Sonia’s first,” says the USA international. “You never know how things are going to go. It would have been so hard for anyone to follow on from Emma, but the whole team has done such a tremendous job in adapting to that, to new players, to new staff, and we have a really great and tremendous unbeaten record. If you look at it from that point, then it’s unbelievable really.
“We definitely want to push for more and push for more in Europe especially. We are happy to be winning, but at the same time it’s about being consistently dominant through the first and second half of the season in the Champions League and just knowing that our standard and what we want the most is to win everything. So, we’re happy, but definitely not satisfied.”
There is an incentive to keep winning in that, as well as being a “force to be reckoned with”, Bompastor is a “terrible loser”, Macario says with a laugh. “She just wants us to be ruthless in every single way, even if it’s a very small game between ourselves,” she says. “She strives for perfection in everything and unfortunately perfection cannot be achieved every time.”
Chelsea were swept away by Barcelona, losing 8-2 on aggregate, leading to frustration for Bompastor, says the forward. “We did not play and impose ourselves in the way that we wanted to against Barcelona. So, of course she’s very right to be frustrated, to be upset and to expect more from us. We know that we have to work even harder to meet the expectations of us.”
Macario has come into form and fitness as Chelsea’s season reaches its Wembley climax, where they face the holders, Manchester United, and attempt to reclaim a crown they have won five times. Macario is yet to play at the stadium, having missed out previously for Chelsea and the United States through injury. “I’ve watched the team play there many times, even when I wasn’t playing for Chelsea,” says the 25-year-old. “Playing at Wembley in general is something that every player dreams about. We’re just happy to be back there.”
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Macario’s first game, and goal, for Chelsea came nine months after she joined the club and lifted the weight off a long recovery from the ACL injury she suffered in June 2022. The journey since has not been as straightforward as hoped though. “It hasn’t been the smoothest time or transition back into playing,” she says. “Having been out for so long, other things come, different little niggles, and it’s hard to pick up form in general, especially in the middle of a season, like this year. Thankfully I feel like I’ve finally been able to be on the pitch consistently since January or so, which has been a big achievement.”
The injury woes have meant the forward takes the time to “embrace every moment”, and an FA Cup win at the end of a season in which it took time for her to make her mark would be “the cherry on top, for sure”.
As well as the desire to win for herself and the club, she also has a burning desire to give back to the club and repay their patience with her. “I am very, very grateful for Chelsea for having taken me in when I was injured. Not only that but I feel like I owe it to them to be better and do better. No one really expected my injury recovery to have taken so long, but it’s something that unfortunately just happens. I want to do my work on and off the pitch to be able to show how grateful I am and how much pride I feel playing for Chelsea.”