Emma Hayes 'not interested in the history' ahead of Chelsea's Women's Champions League semi-final

Chelsea can make history when they face Bayern Munich in the UEFA Women's Champions League on Sunday but you won't find head coach Emma Hayes getting caught up in the occasion.

The Blues lost 2-1 in the first leg of the semi-final Germany last weekend as Sydney Lohmann and Hanna Glas got on the scoresheet for Bayern, while Melanie Leupolz netted against her former club to give Chelsea a vital away goal.

Now the return leg at Kingsmeadow on Sunday afternoon gives the Londoners a golden opportunity to turn things around and become the first English side to reach a Women's Champions League final for 14 years.

But Hayes isn't daunted by that prospect and plans to shut out all the external noise ahead of what she is treating as just another 90 minutes on the football pitch.

"Being sentimental about these positions is misplaced, it's just another game," she said. "It's [the media] that build it up to be something more than it is for us.

"For us, it's just one that we consider to be important. I'm not interested in the history, I'm not interested in the stats around it, I'm interested in staying present and making sure that what we do every day is what we do at the weekend."

Having already won the Continental Tyres League Cup, Chelsea are now in the driving seat for the Barclays FA Women's Super League title, having only lost one game this season.

A quadruple - including the Women's FA Cup, which will run over into next season - is still on the cards but Hayes doesn't want the gravity of the game to derail her players from their normal preparation.

She added: "I'm really fresh! I had a day off, I'll have another day off on Friday where I'll take my son out, we're going to go out on a steam train!

"I'm going to make sure that everybody in this environment behaves in exactly the same way that they behave every day because anything else means you're preparing for an occasion.

"No-one's getting married, it's a game of football and it's our job to do what we do. Being a pro is just doing it all of the time, you can't switch these things on and off.

"It doesn't matter if it's Bristol this week or Bayern Munich, I promise we will prepare in exactly the same way."

Last weekend was only the second time this season that Chelsea had lost a match in all competitions, the only other coming in the league where Brighton put paid to their WSL-record 33-match unbeaten run.

Their opposition is of the highest class, a team that currently head up the Frauen Bundesliga and look like they will stop VfL Wolfsburg from picking up a fifth successive league title.

For the Chelsea boss, the first-leg defeat provided her an opportunity to study Bayern in greater depth and she will be looking to make tactical tweaks ahead of the clash at Kingsmeadow.

"I've learnt they're a very good team," added Hayes. "I've learnt that they've got good attacking players. I also learnt that they have found a defensive system that stifled us.

"For them, they've got the advantage. It's half-time so now I get to coach. Now I get to see which players within our team respond to what's necessary and produce the performance the team needs.

"That's the big thing. Teams get through in these situations but no one player is responsible, whether we win or lose - we do it together.

"It's just making sure that everybody fulfils the task that I'm asking and does it to the best of their ability."

In the wake of a men's League Cup final last week where fans, albeit in a limited capacity, were allowed back in, the occasion will be diminished by the fact that it will be yet another critical clash taking place behind closed doors.

"It's disappointing that we couldn't be a test event," lamented the Chelsea boss. "It would have been great to have the fans there but I understand it's Covid and it's not to be.

"They're with us. We've had to play an entire season without our fans and we know how amazing our fans are, so I promise I'll be every one of them on Sunday.

"Hopefully this is the last time we'll be without them and next season they'll be back. It's sad but it's just not to be, unfortunately."

Sportsbeat 2021