"She is one of the best midfielders in the world and our fans will love her.”

It has been two-and-a-half years since Chelsea manager Emma Hayes welcomed Ji Soyun to the club with these words. Everything in between has served to prove her right.

One, of course, has led to the other, with Blues fans falling head over heels with a player who proved herself to have few equals. Ji certainly made light of the football and cultural transition the move entailed, becoming England’s Player of the Year in her first full season. Not bad for someone who had never before played outside of Asia.

Yet if others were surprised at the speed with which the Korea Republic midfielder took English football by storm, Hayes was anything but. She had been smitten after watching Ji orchestrate a 4-2 win for Japan’s Inac Kobe Leonessa over Chelsea in the 2013 International Women’s Club Championship final. The Chelsea boss saw a playmaker whose balance, touch and ability to score and create goals marked her out as a potential world-beater and, within a month, had negotiated a deal to take the then 22-year-old to Stamford Bridge. And for all the subsequent successes of a player who was again named in England’s Team of the Year last season, Hayes is convinced that the best is yet to come.....

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