Bompastor: Winning trophies is part of Chelsea's DNA

Chelsea boss Sonia Bompastor insisted that winning trophies is "part of our DNA" as they prepare to take on Manchester United in the League Cup final on Sunday.

The Blues are the current holders of the trophy, defeating Manchester City in last season's showpiece when Bompastor won her first title in English football with Chelsea.

Bompastor will be aiming to win her third cup competition with the Blues, with Emma Hayes (eight) and Nick Cushing (five) the only managers to win more in the WSL era.

Meanwhile, only Cushing, Shelley Kerr and Laura Harvey have won each of their first three finals in all competitions as a Women's Super League manager.

This will be Chelsea's seventh League Cup final, with only Arsenal (10) contesting more, and Bompastor relishes such occasions.

"Really exciting, I think as I already mentioned multiple times, when you are in Chelsea that's the games you want to play," said Bompastor.

"You want to play to compete as far as you can in every competition, you want to play finals and you want to lift silverware, so that's the first opportunity for us on Sunday and we are really looking forward to that.

"That's a really important moment for us, the first opportunity for us to lift a trophy and that's part of our DNA. We see the game on Sunday being an opportunity for us to be successful and to hopefully define the rest of the season."

United will be the eighth different team to contest a League Cup final, and the first debutants in the showpiece match since Bristol City in 2020-21. They lost 6-0 to Chelsea.

Three of the previous seven debutants have lifted the trophy: Arsenal in 2011, Manchester City in 2014 and Chelsea in 2019-20.

Although Fridolina Rolfo is proud to reach the final, the former Barcelona star has her eyes firmly fixed on silverware. 

"Yes, we should be proud, but of course we're not happy – we want to win the final as well," Rolfo told The Guardian.

"This is what we all strive for. The club wants this. We all want to win it and we strive to get there and now we’re there.

"We’ve been performing really well and we had a great game against Arsenal [in the semi-final], so we deserve to be in this final."