Women’s FA Cup Semi-Final: Chelsea 2-0 Manchester City

Two individual finishes by Fran Kirby were the difference at a drizzly Kingsmeadow, sending Chelsea past their league title rivals Manchester City and into an all-London final. On five minutes and again on seventy-four she was quickly onto long balls forward, through the middle and then down the right, and outwitted goalkeeper and defenders alike. The result completes a semi-final day the BBC broadcast in full for the first time in the competition’s history, and it sets up the fixture the rest of this issue is built around. It also, in a season that would end with her taking both the PFA and the Football Writers’ awards, is the clearest single argument for why.