After Chelsea had navigated their way past Bayern Munich in 2021 to earn a place in their first Champions League final, Emma Hayes labelled her gutsy side “mentality monsters”.
They went on to lose the final to Barcelona by a humbling 4-0 scoreline. However, the “mentality monsters” moniker stuck and has been reaffirmed in three back-to-back FA Cup wins and two consecutive WSL titles, with a third in sight.
After the Blues beat Manchester United 1-0 to win the FA Cup at Wembley on Sunday, Hayes had a new label for her side. “What the team has become is the most flexible team,” she said. “Our team has become ‘hybrid monsters’.
We can float between things in ways that takes years to master. They are so adaptable.” There are always incomings and outgoings, but football teams exist in cycles, with the core peaking and then being pulled apart as the side are reshaped for the next phase.