‘It’s a chess match:’ How does a team approach playing the same opponent 4 times in 12 days?

Two teams rarely meet each other more than two or three times in a single season. Beyond the usual double of home-and-away league fixtures and occasional cup clash, facing a team four times in one campaign is almost unheard of. But what is more exceptional is facing an opponent four times in a row.

Starting on Saturday in the League Cup final, Chelsea and Manchester City’s women’s teams are about to find out what it takes, as they face off an incredible four times in just 12 days.

And there are some recent lessons from history for them to follow. Last year Benfica played Sporting CP four times in five games between March 31-May 1, and this week Liga MX rivals Guadalajara and Club América clashed three times in eight days with a league match in between two Concacaf Champions Cup round-of-16 ties.

One of the most famous examples, though, came in 2011 when LaLiga giants Barcelona and Real Madrid played four Clasicos in 18 days. Similarly, Tottenham Hotspur and Wimbledon met an astonishing five times in the span of a month during the 1998-99 season.

So what could Chelsea and City learn? Some of those involved in the games above gave ESPN their thoughts.

Chelsea vs. Manchester City, 2025

The women’s game has never seen anything like it: Chelsea and Manchester City will play the League Cup final on March 15, before meeting again in the two-legged UEFA Women’s Champions League quarterfinals on March 19 and 27, with a Women’s Super League clash in between on March 23. They could have even had an FA Cup quarterfinal to contend on March 8, but the draw kept them apart.

“It’s rare,” Chelsea manager Sonia Bompastor told ESPN. “I wouldn’t say difficult. That’s the challenge we need to face, but obviously that’s a rare situation. We’ll take it game-by-game. We play City in different competitions; every game will be difficult, but we’ll focus on the first one.”

While leading European juggernauts Lyon in her previous job, Bompastor faced rivals Paris Saint-Germain several times as the pair were often in the running for the league title and in domestic cups knockouts/finals, though she never faced them four times in a row. All season, the French coach has emphasised that while remaining unbeaten is impressive, only winning silverware is what truly matters. And they have a good chance, as City sacked head coach Gareth Taylor just five days before the final.

“Our mentality is to think that it is [Saturday’s League Cup final] the first opportunity for us to grab a trophy in the season,” she added. “So yeah, we’ll go for it. We’ll take it game-by-game and it’s really rare, but we are excited.”

Chelsea defender Lucy Bronze is no stranger to a competitive run of games, having a trophy laden 18-year career, but this is something that even the 33-year-old hasn’t experienced before.

“I can’t imagine either team are going to put out the exact same team for all four games, the exact subs, the exact same people play the same minutes, the exact same players play the same,” she told ESPN. “It’s hard as a player to be consistent across four games in such a short space at time. There’ll be outlying performances in different games and I guess different things to watch. I think it’ll be quite interesting from a pundit and a fan’s point of view, to analyse that and see how players perform in each of them.”

While the fact that all four games are played at different venues keeps the atmospheres different and the outcomes and intentions for each of the games differs, Bronze likened the run of games to a chess match.

“It’s almost like a game of chess and who’s going to make a change that’ll change the dynamic,” she said. “But will they [the opposition] change? Maybe there is a matchup which is the same from the previous game where, actually just because I’m successful in the first one, maybe the other players learn something in that game.

“It is quite an interesting concept: how players and coaches adapt and learn across four games to try and get the upper hand.”

Barcelona vs. Real Madrid, 2011

Back in 2011, four meetings in 18 days pushed the rivalry between Spanish giants Madrid and Barca to the very edge. The run of games brought the worst out of coaches José Mourinho and Pep Guardiola, saw Madrid crowned Copa del Rey champions (1-0) and helped Barça on their path to win a LaLiga (1-1) and Champions League double (3-1 on aggregate.)

Barcelona and Real Madrid need no introduction to each other, having been rivals for years. But Madrid defender Marcelo found it tough to remember which competition he was playing in at the time.

“There was a league game and I thought we were playing in the Champions League … it was confusing,” he told ESPN. “Honestly, it was really strange. I don’t think it was good for football because everyone waited all year to see a game between Madrid and Barca and it lost the [magic] … just for a moment.”

Barcelona midfielder Andrés Iniesta admitted that there wasn’t much change to the buildup, given the history between the two clubs.

“They were very intense weeks which reflected the rivalry we had in all competitions,” he told ESPN’s Moises Llorens. “Barça were marking an era and Real Madrid were trying to put an end to it … In those matches, there are few things to hide or that the rival doesn’t know, not only because we played four times in a row, but also because the rivalry has been going on for a long time and everything was already there super-analysed, regardless there may be new developments every year.”

Barcelona’s fitness coach under Guardiola at the time, Aureli Altimira, added: “By that stage of the season, we had hardly any time to train. The work was already done and it was about taking on board the different tactics that could be applied in the games. That is what we worked on when we were all on the training pitch. It was a super-team that knew how to get the best out of themselves and that showed.”

Indeed, the tactical nature of the games changed, as each result changed the complexion of things.

“I think that the initial idea of each team is always the same, but it’s true that one game can give you nuances or clues to prepare for the next,” Iniesta said. “That’s on a tactical level. On a mental or confidence level, it’s obvious that results and the way we play in the games to come also have an influence. These are games in which the player motivates himself, games in which every player always wants to play. But in our case, the coach always found the right words to make us see the importance of every game …

“The Copa del Rey final was excessively confrontational, and then there was Pepe’s sending off at the Bernabeu, which generated a big controversy. I don’t know, for us playing good football was convenient, the rest was noise that didn’t help us. Luckily, we overcame everything and that year we won the Champions League and LaLiga.”

Tottenham Hotspur vs. Wimbledon, 1999

Over 25 years ago, five games between these two sides occurred in the space of a month from Jan. 16 to Feb. 16 in 1999, across three different competitions: the FA Cup, League Cup and Premiership. Only six goals were scored (half of them in Spurs’ 3-0 win in the FA Cup replay after a 1-1 draw), and Spurs won the League Cup replay 1-0, while the Premiership tie finished 0-0.

Germany defender Steffen Freund — who went on to make 131 appearances for Spurs — joined from Borussia Dortmund in the winter break ahead of the five fixtures.

“I asked George Graham, the coach, can I have a short break with my family for Christmas and New Year’s Eve? And he said, ‘Yes, no problem. But don’t forget Steffen, we play against Wimbledon’,” he told ESPN. “There was a massive opportunity for the club to win silverware and to play in Europe again. And that was one of the points I said, ‘oh yes, of course two games at Wembley, that would be good’.

“I was a new signing two weeks before, so in the end I had five Wimbledon games in one month. Sometimes I came to the training ground saying ‘is there only Wimbledon in the Premier League or in cup games for Spurs?’ Of course, it was a little bit funny but also a little bit crazy because you have a cup replay against Wimbledon and you have the Premier League game and then of course the big [League Cup] semifinal. So overall a little bit crazy. They were really hard games, but also exciting to play against Wimbledon.”

Freund’s dream when signing for the north London club was to win silverware — following success in the Champions League with Dortmund and Euro ’96 with Germany — and return to the European stage. Within the first two months of his career with Tottenham, he had done so: beating Leicester in the League Cup final and gaining qualification for the following season’s UEFA Cup. Having spent some of his post-playing career as a coach, Freund’s reflection of that Wimbledon run of games was that he could use each to learn something new and apply that knowledge to the next game.

“Be focused on the game,” he said. “Look around, think about what has happened in the first game, what they’re doing with and without the ball.

“You know the movement of [Wimbledon midfielder] Robbie Earle, but I wanted understand most of the players because then you learn something from every game. The second game against Wimbledon of course was different; I knew already lots about Earle, and then [striker] John Hartson, [full-back] Ben Thatcher, lots of really good players.

“It’s good to know how they play; it’s good to know the movements of the players against you. I learned at that time what can I do, and what the players from my team can do next to me, to use that experience from the first game. Sometimes it’s about whether they are quick, good one-vs.-one, or on the turn, as an example. So that’s why you learn from every game.”