For a player who has not lost the whole season, the Captain of Chelsea Millie Bright remains fixed in those times a few and distant among his conquering blues team have experienced a defeat.
“I think losses always stay with you,” Bright tells him Mail Sport in Chelsea Cobham training field, “I know that some people can bed them, but for me personally, they stay with you.”
In this case, Bright refers to the final record of the Club League Cup in recent times: in the last three years, Chelsea has lost three consecutive finals, with competition as a recurring thorn on the side of a team used for the successful success center.
But on Saturday, in the midst of an attractive undefeated season under the new Sonia Bompastor manager, Chelsea has the opportunity to reverse the trend in the final of the Subway Riverway Women's League Cup when they face the rivals of WSL Manchester City in Pride Park.
Bright in particular is determined to use those repeated losses as the gasoline necessary to feed a unique season.
“They are the fuel every day,” Bright continued. 'In the days you think you are having a bad day, they are the moments that really feed you to go to the next level and make that additional representative, or work on that additional technical thing, or make the additional race.
Millie Bright is using the memory of the Lost League Cup finals to stimulate your Chelsea side this weekend in Derby
The Blues captain is imbued with the club's winning DNA and is anxious to ensure the quadruple
Under former manager Emma Hayes Chelsea became the most formidable perspective in the WSL
“It is moments like that in which you know you have to go to another level to make sure that the next time you have that opportunity, that the result is different.”
Under former manager Emma Hayes, Chelsea became an almost restable winning force, claiming seven WSL titles, five cups of FA, two cups of league and, in 2021, the more domestic acute.
But since his departure at the end of last season, the incoming chief coach was not happy to rest in the laurels of his predecessor.
“It has been the softest transition you could have asked as a player,” says Bright about the moving of the western London, “is a fantastic manager and a brilliant person, and the team that brought with her, have simply been located as if they always belonged here.
'I think it has really taken us all to a new level. I have felt it individually, but even as a team, it seems that we have new heights to achieve now. Sonia is very aware (how to prepare for the finals) and we have done it before (as players), but we know it becomes more difficult every time.
“It's about marking the days off, doing all the right things every day and making sure that they don't leave stone without moving, and that you can look back and say that you were better prepared, you gave everything.”
Bright is anxious to talk about the 'standards' bombastor in the locker room, although the team has not experienced a defeat under its new manager and remains in dispute in the four competitions, players are not illusions on how a boompastor could react to a loss.
“I think you learn very quickly how competitive it is and how much impulse it has, but that is the kind of mentality and attitude that is contagious, it is contagious,” Bright continues.
The new Sonia Bompastor manager has established even higher standards and the team is still undefeated
'We have always been a competitive group, but this feels something different. There have been many actions in which, yes, we have done the job and we have won, but we are not happy with the performance, or they are the smallest details that you know, okay, we have won (but) this is not good enough. This has to be better.
'I think everyone thinks because we are so good that these conversations do not happen, but they do happen and happen regularly. We fill ourselves with trust, but most importantly, we demand much more on each other.
“Having that mentality, in the difficult times of the games, we will be ready if we face a situation where we are not used to being. The right behaviors daily, the intensity in which we train, and what is expected is clear.”
Let the side do not reach until the dust sits at the end of the season. Eight clear points at the top of the WSL table, Saturday's victory could trigger an unprecedented quadruple. It is not necessary to say that conversations on the issue of the potential to make history are kept short in Cobham.
“We like to remain at the time,” adds Bright, with the slight air of the lack of will, the best players have when drawn on prohibited issues in a similar way. 'But we become aware of what is at stake.
The conversations, share, occur at the beginning of the season, when the objectives for the campaign are presented and evaluated at regular intervals.
“I think it's always good to know what is in front of you and why you are fighting,” he allows. “So they don't, you don't know what you are going to lose, potentially.
“But stay there, and we deal with the game in front of us.”
Bright is not willing to buy too much in a quadruple history, preferring to stay at the time
But the blues will have a difficult opponent to deal on Saturday after the dismissal of Man City to Gareth Taylor
The game against Chelsea is peculiar. The bubble team has to deal with a Man City team that replaced chief coach Gareth Taylor just a few days before a glass final. Even more intriguing, the match will begin four consecutive meetings between the two teams, in three competitions, with the power to determine their seasons.
Bright admits that circumstances are “really strange”, wondering if the female game has been similar in England, but insists that psychological peculiarity will not affect the team on Saturday. Nor does it require the exhausting schedule that competes on four fronts.
“I think we prosper with many games,” says Bright, and adds that this is something that perennial champions have become accustomed to preparing at the end of the season. “We are blessed with a great squad where we can have those rotations, but ultimately, everyone push each other to make sure that last day arrives, we are better prepared.”
That Chelsea can cope with the slings and arrows of injuries due to her talented ranges is not a euphemism: Thursday she saw a boompastor confirm that the absent draw will include in January that Keira Walsh's signature, Guro Reiten and Naomi Girma, the blues player broke the transfer record for only two months.
But Chelsea's strength, says Bright, is his “collective effort”, a shared understanding of the size of the target on his back and the constant need to “maintain the DNA to win in this club.”
One that is imbued in its oldest player. Bright signed a new agreement to keep it in western London until 2026 in an impulse for the club before a makeup or broken streak. Despite having won 14 trophies in Azul since they registered, the defender's thirst to win still does not decide.
Chelsea's oldest female player signed a new agreement with the club last week
“I would not know how to be otherwise,” says Bright when asked how he stays hungry at the highest level. 'It's just who I am as a person, and I want to see my teammates be successful too.
'I want to push everyone and when my time comes off, I want my legacy to live. I want to have treasured the moments I've had with this club, but I also want people to look and know (that's) how a Chelsea player should be.
'I find it quite easy to continue pressing, because I am so hungry for more, and there is still much more to give.
'But I think that this new era in which we are, in addition to giving everyone an impulse of emotion, has really made us move forward, want more, and do more, and be even better. So it is an exciting place to be.