Adding to their already historic season, 2024/25 WSL champions and 2025 League Cup winners Chelsea FC handed Manchester United a 3-0 defeat in Sunday's 2025 FA Cup final, completing the club's second-ever domestic treble.

Though the Blues first claimed an elusive treble in the 2020/21 season, this year's roster did so without dropping a single match in any of the three domestic competitions.

"I could not have expected this," said first-year Chelsea manager Sonia Bompastor about her debut success leading the Blues. "It is almost ideal in terms of domestic dominance."

To clinch that dominance, Chelsea upended the defending FA Cup champs Manchester United at London's iconic Wembley Stadium behind a brace from French fullback Sandy Baltimore and a header from USWNT attacker Catarina Macario.

Baltimore gave Chelsea the lead by slipping a late first-half penalty past 2024/25 WSL Golden Glove winner and USWNT goalkeeper prospect Phallon Tullis-Joyce, and the Blues never relented, with second-half sub Macario doubling their scoreline in the 84th minute before Baltimore tacked on a final goal in stoppage time.

"It's a very emotional day," an emotional Macario told the broadcast after finishing her first season following a long ACL recovery. "It's a trophy we always wanted to win."

"All the credit to my players," said Bompastor. "We showed our mentality and our values in this game so we ended the season in an almost perfect scenario – we won, we were playing at Wembley, the stadium was nearly sold out, and we had a strong performance and result against a strong opponent."

"It is an almost ideal way to finish the season."

A screen shows the 74,412 attendance at Wembley Stadium during the 2025 FA Cup final.
Sunday's FA Cup final was the third straight with a crowd over 74,000 fans. (Catherine Ivill - AMA/Getty Images)

FA Cup crowds prove sustained demand for women's soccer

Chelsea FC's undefeated treble-winning season wasn't the only notable victory on Sunday, as the FA Cup final drew a crowd of over 74,000 fans for the third straight year.

Sunday's 74,412 attendance mark was just shy of both last year's crowd of 76,082 and the 77,390 fans who watched Chelsea defeat the Red Devils in 2023 — all well beyond the tournament final's previous record of 49,094 attendees achieved in 2022.

Fueled by the football fervor following England's 2022 Euro victory — the country's first international trophy, men's or women's, since the 1966 men's World Cup — the 2023 FA Cup final still stands as the largest crowd at a domestic women's soccer match across all nations.

With Sunday's match joining the over-74,000 attendance club, it's clear the post-Euros enthusiasm wasn't a blip, but a boost to the continued growth and sustained success of the women's game.

Following a dominant 2024/25 campaign, Chelsea FC will look to cap their historic run by completing a domestic treble on Sunday, when they'll battle Manchester United for a third season trophy in the 2025 FA Cup final.

After securing the 2024/25 League Cup in March amidst an unbeaten run to a sixth-straight WSL title, the Blues will close out their season against the league's third-place finishers, the Red Devils, in London's iconic Wembley Stadium.

Should Chelsea secure the 2025 FA Cup, they will add a second domestic treble to their resume after clinching their first trio of trophies in the 2020/21 season. This time, however, they could do so in undefeated fashion.

"We are in a really good place, just the fact that we won the league being unbeaten," said first-year Blues manager Sonia Bompastor. "To end the season with an FA Cup final at Wembley against Man United is maybe the perfect way to end the season."

The 2023/24 Manchester United team and staff celebrate their first-ever FA Cup championship.
Manchester United seeks to defend their 2024 FA Cup title. (Visionhaus/Getty Images)

Manchester United hunts second straight FA Cup trophy

Standing between Chelsea and the treble are 2024 FA Cup champions Manchester United, who will take aim at their only trophy of the season partly behind the play of 2024/25 WSL Golden Glove winner and USWNT goalkeeper prospect Phallon Tullis-Joyce.

Man United enter as the game's undisputed underdogs, having dropped both their WSL regular-season matches against Chelsea in narrow 1-0 defeats.

Even more, the Red Devils must overcome a particular tough stretch of play, facing more than a month without a victory on their schedule.

Man United's last win was their 2-0 FA Cup semifinal victory over Manchester City on April 13th, with the Red Devils suffering a pair of losses and recording two draws to close out WSL play.

That said, United has experience downing the Blues on the FA Cup stage, ousting Chelsea from last year's semifinals en route to a club-first FA title.

Remarking that Manchester United "are a really strong team," Bompastor pointed out that the Red Devils "don't concede a lot of goals, and we need to remember that."

"You only get the trophy if you win, so we need to make sure going into the game we have the best preparation and we perform on the day."

How to watch Chelsea play Manchester United at the FA Cup final

The 2025 FA Cup final between Chelsea FC and Manchester United will kick off at 8:30 AM ET on Sunday.

Live coverage of the match will begin at 8:20 AM ET on ESPN+.

WSL side Manchester City parted ways with manager Gareth Taylor on Monday, just five days before the club faces table-leaders Chelsea in Saturday’s League Cup final — and nine days before they meet Chelsea once again in the UEFA Champions League quarterfinals.

In his nearly five years at the helm, Taylor led Man City to an overall 117-15-29 record, picking up the 2020 FA Cup and 2022 League Cup along the way.

Taylor departs just one year into a three-year contract renewal with the club.

"Manchester City prides itself on competing at the top of the WSL and on its outstanding record of qualifying for European competition," said Man City managing director Charlotte O'Neill in a club statement. "Unfortunately, results this season have so far not reached this high standard."

Former City coach Nick Cushing — who led the team from 2013 to 2020 — will take over interim manager duties for the remainder of the season.

Taylor’s dismissal follows a number of big-name WSL coaching changes, with Arsenal’s Jonas Eidevall and Liverpool’s Matt Beard both exiting the league this season.

Eidevall has since taken over as head coach for the NWSL’s San Diego Wave.

Despite rumblings that Taylor could follow suit and fill the vacancy with the Wave’s SoCal rival Angel City, those rumors appear to be overblown.

Manchester City attacker Vivianne Miedema celebrates a goal during a 2025 WSL match.
Man City will face Chelsea four times over the next three weeks. (Mike Egerton/PA Images via Getty Images)

Manchester City still in the hunt for non-WSL titles

Sitting 12 points behind Chelsea with just six matchdays left in their 2024/25 season, fourth-place Man City's WSL title hopes have dimmed. However, they remain very much in the running for the League Cup, FA Cup, and Champions League honors.

That said, the Citizens are staring down an unusually demanding gauntlet against one of the world’s top clubs this month.

After facing Chelsea in Saturday's League Cup final and next week's Champions League quarterfinals, City will again take on the Blues in a March 23rd regular-season matchup before wrapping up the pair's two-leg Champions League quarters on March 27th.

Ultimately, the pressure for top WSL teams to properly challenge Chelsea’s years-long dominance is mounting — and some coaches appear to be bearing the brunt of those ambitions.

Competing in front of a record crowd of 77,390 fans at Wembley Stadium, Sam Kerr propelled Chelsea to the 2023 Women’s FA Cup title, scoring the eventual game winner in the 68th minute.

Kerr then propelled herself into the air, celebrating with a high-flying backflip (video below).

Chelsea defeated Manchester United, 1-0, to win its third straight FA Cup final title.

The 29-year-old Kerr said multiple people have been asking when she was going to whip out the backflip again, including Chelsea teammate Millie Bright, who is currently sidelined with a knee injury.

“I texted (Millie) and said, ‘backflip incoming,’ so I knew it was coming today,'” Kerr said in her postgame interview.

Kerr has scored the game winner in each of Chelsea’s three straight FA Cup Final wins.

In 2021, Kerr scored the first two goals in Chelsea’s 3-0 win over Arsenal. During the 2022 Women’s FA Cup Final vs. Manchester City, Kerr opened the scoring and then notched the game winner in extra time, leading Chelsea to a 3-2 win. (Video of all five of Kerr’s FA Cup final goals are embedded below.)

Sam Kerr’s goals in the 2021 Women’s FA Cup Final

Sam Kerr’s goals in the 2022 Women’s FA Cup Final

Sam Kerr’s game winner in the 2023 Women’s FA Cup Final

Sam Kerr scored the game-winner in Chelsea’s FA Cup final, but instead of celebrating her late-game goal, she felt an overwhelming feeling of relief. The star striker notched two goals to lead the Blues to a 3-2 win over Manchester City and the club’s third straight FA Cup title in May.

“At the FA Cup Final, everyone’s like, ‘You scored two goals,’ and I am like, ‘I had the worst game,'” Kerr tells co-hosts Sam Mewis and Lynn Williams on the latest episode of the Snacks podcast.

As Chelsea’s season was winding down, Kerr remembers the stress beginning to mount and losing sleep ahead of the FA Cup.

“I was like having crazy nightmares just because it meant so much,” she says. “So after that game in the FA Cup Final, it was just the biggest relief.”

Despite notching a brace to seal the victory, Kerr didn’t feel like it was her best performance.

“I know when I am bad more than when I am doing good. I can feel when I am really impacting a game,” Kerr says.

“There’s this photo of me after the goal I scored in extra time, and it looks like I am like, ‘I am a baller. I did that.’ But I said to Kriste (Mewis), I was like, ‘Thank god,’ and then I ran to the side and everyone was like, ‘You didn’t celebrate,’ because I was like, ‘Oh god, thank god that is over.'” Kerr says. “I just got everyone in and was like, ‘We just need to defend.'”

At that point in the game, the 28-year-old was running through all the possible scenarios of how the match could play out, telling Williams and Mewis that all she could think was “get me off the pitch.”

“That’s why I scored because there is no way I was going to take a penalty,” she adds.

Listen to the full episode of Snacks for more from Kerr on her Chelsea season, Australian national team career and potential NWSL return.

Chelsea retained their FA Cup title in thrilling fashion on Sunday, defeating Manchester City 3-2 behind Sam Kerr’s game-winning goal in extra time. A Women’s FA Cup-record 49,094 fans were in attendance for the game at Wembley Stadium.

Kerr got Chelsea on the board first in the 33rd minute, nodding in a well-struck Mille Bright cross for the go-ahead goal.

Lauren Hemp responded for Manchester City just before half, curling in a stunning shot for the equalizer. Hemp’s finish came against the run of play as Manchester City struggled to maintain possession in the face of Chelsea’s relentless press.

Chelsea regained the lead in the 63rd minute on an Erin Cuthbert banger from the top of the box.

Chelsea looked to have the game locked up after Cuthbert’s worldie, but Hayley Raso brought Manchester City even again in the 89th minute.

The Australian star chested down a lofted cross and expertly beat her defender before sending her shot past Chelsea keeper Ann-Katrin Berger.

Chelsea jumped on Manchester City early in extra time, applying a wave of pressure in the opening minutes. Kerr charged at Manchester City’s backline and buried a deflected shot for the game-sealing goal in the 99th minute.

Chelsea held onto the 3-2 lead until the final whistle to secure the fourth FA Cup trophy in club history. The win also comes on the heels of the Blues’ 4-2 win over Manchester United last weekend for their third consecutive FA Women’s Super League title.

The Women’s FA Cup semifinals begin Saturday with a contest between West Ham and Manchester City, with a rematch of the 2021 final between Chelsea and Arsenal awaiting fans on Sunday.

Saturday’s matchup will begin at 7:15 a.m. ET on ESPN+. The last meeting between the two teams on April 2 resulted in a 2-0 win for Manchester City. West Ham are headed into the game having lost back-to-back Women’s Super League games, while City is on an eight-game winning streak and looking for a fourth FA Cup.

To reach Sunday’s rematch, Arsenal won its FA Cup quarterfinal 4-0 against Coventry United, while Chelsea defeated Birmingham City 5-0 in its quarterfinal.

The two sides last met in February, and that match ended in a 0-0 draw. In the 2021 FA Cup final in December, though, Chelsea defeated Arsenal 3-0, helped by two second-half goals from Sam Kerr.

Arsenal has won the most FA Cup titles overall with 14, but its most recent FA Cup title came in 2016.

The two teams will face off Sunday at 7:30 a.m. ET on ESPN+.

While Chelsea dominated Arsenal 3-0 on the field in Sunday’s FA Cup title in front of a record 40,942-person crowd, the match reached a peak audience of 1.3 million viewers on BBC TV.

There were also 160,000 live-stream requests for the match on BBC iPlayer. BT Sport has yet to report their numbers.

The record audience for a women’s club game still sits at 2.2 million viewers for Manchester City’s win over West Ham in the 2019 FA Cup final.

The win was Chelsea’s third in the FA Cup final. All three have come under head coach Emma Hayes.

Sam Kerr put on a dominant performance in her first FA Cup final, leading Chelsea to a 3-0 win over Arsenal on Sunday.

After a quiet opening 45 minutes, the Australian forward notched back-to-back goals in the second half to help clinch the Blues’ third FA Cup title.

Kerr’s second goal of the evening energized the record crowd in Wembley Stadium, with the Chelsea striker chipping the Arsenal goalkeeper in a picture-perfect finish.

Chelsea manager Emma Hayes reacted to Kerr’s cheeky chip after the match, saying she was “simply purring” when the third goal went in.

Playing in front a record 40,942 fans, Kerr told the BBC her stellar game was inspired by one in particular: Kristie Mewis.

“My girlfriend’s here, that’s why I put on a show,” Kerr said. “Let’s go!”

The USWNT midfielder posted pictures from Wembley Stadium to her Instagram story, including a photo of girlfriend Kerr, captioning the story “average.”

Chelsea’s FA Cup win secures the team the domestic treble for the 2020-2021 season.

Chelsea dominated Arsenal 3-0 to capture the FA Cup title in front of a record 40,942- person Wembley crowd on Sunday.

The Blues got out on the front foot early, scoring after just three minutes on the pitch. Fran Kirby notched the opener for the Blues, beating a disorganized Arsenal backline to put her side up 1-0.

Chelsea continued to put Arsenal under pressure, creating a series of chances in the final third. The Blues, however, went into the break with a 1-0 scoreline after a string of missed opportunities.

Sam Kerr turned things around in the second half, putting her name on the scoresheet in the 56th minute. The Australian striker outpaced her defender to beat the Arsenal keeper at the near post to double Chelsea’s lead.

Kerr added another goal to her tally in the 77th minute, chipping the Arsenal goalie in a must-see finish.

Despite Arsenal holding the majority of possession, the match was a one-sided affair. The Gunners failed to fire a shot on target, with Vivianne Miedema uncharacteristically quiet in front of goal.

Sunday’s victory marks Chelsea’s third FA Cup final victory, with all of their titles coming under coach Emma Hayes.