A rare and welcome glimmer of good news on the sporting front… Chelsea Women have pressed ahead and announced a new marquee signing, even though she won’t kick a ball in anger until August at the earliest.

With the remaining months of the Women’s Super League set to be abandoned to coronavirus, the Blues have unveiled Bayern Munich’s women’s team captain as their new weapon to help conquer all when normal service resumes.

Midfielder Mel Leupolz, 25, who will wear No8 – the number she currently wears at Bayern, already watches Chelsea Women’s games on German telly, and has 66 caps for the national team.

“It’s such a big club, and I believe in the progress Chelsea are doing,” she said, after signing a three-year deal.

She feels she can, personally, can develop further with Chelsea – a view manager Emma Hayes shares. “She has the right qualities we look for; she has international experience, and her best years are to come.”

She was given a tour of Stamford Bridge when she signed; a shrewd move, as a tour of the somewhat more basic Kingsmeadow facilities in Kingston that the women use might have seen her telling the cabbie to turn round and go straight back to Gatwick.

Her strengths? “I have a good eye for spaces, I’m always a fighter in the game, I like to play good balls to the strikers; I’m a team player.”

Mel does, however, still talk about ‘soccer’ rather than ‘football’ – something that will have to be corrected once she arrives full-time in the summer.

She’s been the captain of Bayern for two years, and has been with the German giants since 2014.

Picture courtesy of Chelsea FC