White smoke is finally rising from Chelsea and Sonia Bompastor is officially appointed as Emma Hayes’ successor with a four-year contract. Now that the club’s new leader has been confirmed after Telegraph Sport broke the news last month, what kind of management style can Chelsea fans expect from the French coach next season?
It is believed that Chelsea identified Bompastor as their No. 1 candidate, in part because of her experience in understanding the pressure to win. From the words used to describe Bompastor by those who have worked with her before, it seems that the Women’s Super League champions have chosen someone whose character fits the team mold of ‘mentality monsters’, as Hayes called them in 2021 .
The 43-year-old is the only female coach to win the Women’s Champions League in the last 15 years and she was also a hugely successful player, winning the European title twice with France’s Lyon.
Bompastor led Lyon to their first Champions League title in 2011, beating German side Turbine Potsdam 2-0 in the final at Fulham’s Craven Cottage. Former Norwegian midfielder Ingvild Stensland, who is now assistant coach of her national team, was also part of that team and gives an insight into her then teammate.
“Sonia was the captain, a leader-type personality with an extreme winning mentality,” Stensland told Telegraph Sport. “She’s friendly, she’s a nice person. But most of all I remember her determination; it was her mentality and her dedication in everything she did, including in practice. She was a leader.”
Stensland also played at international level against Bompastor and says she was revered at both ends of the pitch as a full-back. She added: “She could do both – she was strong as an attacking full-back but also good at preventing players from getting past. her.”
‘She was a strong leader’
A versatile player on the left, Bompastor’s skill naturally led to her becoming a key player for the France team and she made her senior international debut against Scotland in 2000. She went on to earn 156 caps and was twice a French Cup winner . winner and seven-time winner of the French league, after initial success with Montpellier ahead of Lyon.
Sylvain Jamet, reporter for French women’s football magazine Footofeminin, has observed parts of Bompastor’s playing career in France and her managerial spell at Lyon. He says: “Her mentality, she is a winner, she wants to win. She was the same as a player. When we watched open practices she always tried to win everything, in every practice exercise she had the mentality to be a winner, to show the players the standard to be the best possible. She will want to win everything.
“She was a full-back or left-back for Lyon and the French national team. At club level she won everything as a player and although the national team won nothing, she was a driving force in improving the French team. She was a strong leader.”
Bompastor’s playing career also saw her enjoy spells at Washington Freedom in America – which left her fluent in English, which will have been another attraction for Chelsea – and Paris St-Germain, before working at Lyon’s academy and then becoming manager of the club became. 2021. By the end of the 2021/22 season, her side were European champions, shocking Barcelona in Turin, although the Catalan club took revenge in last weekend’s Champions League final in Bilbao. But what about her playing style?
“On the coaching side, she is very pragmatic when it comes to the football she wants to play,” Jamet added. “The Lyon fans enjoyed the results because the results were good, but this was not the French way of playing football. We saw against Barcelona in Bilbao that they did not try to beat Barcelona with their football. They tried to beat Barcelona at half-time and they tried to outsmart them. She doesn’t actually want to play nice football if it is not efficient. She focuses on how to win.
“She has a friendly tone at press conferences. But she’ll say what she wants to say! If she is not happy, you will know it… she will say in her words.
That friendly tone isn’t always guaranteed, as another of Bompastor’s former teammates, Aston Villa and French midfielder Kenza Dali, revealed last week. She told football news website Fromthespot.co.uk: “Every exercise in training was competitive for her. I was young and I was afraid of her!
“She’s the type of coach you don’t mess with. She was first and foremost a great left back, a great player and so competitive. I think if you ask one word about Sonia it would be ‘competitive’.”
Bompastor’s experience of dealing with dressing rooms full of world-class players is considered another thing that attracted Chelsea, along with her desire and work ethic. Chelsea’s general manager of the women’s team, Paul Green, along with sporting directors Paul Winstanley and Laurence Stewart, drew up a shortlist of four coaches, and Bompastor was identified relatively quickly as their outstanding candidate. Hayes was also consulted on the decision.
Bompastor, who takes up her role on July 1, will make the move to west London alongside her assistant coaches at Lyon, Camille Abily, another decorated former France international, and Theo Rivrin. Chelsea is interviewing candidates to fill other backroom positions.
In a joint statement, Stewart and Winstanley said: “Sonia is the ideal candidate to build on Emma’s legacy and drive the team forward. She brings a wealth of experience leading at the highest level and winning trophies as a player and coach. Its ethos and values align with Chelsea Football Club. We are all looking forward to having her on board.”
Off the pitch, Chelsea is also setting up a standalone commercial structure for the women’s team in an effort to further increase revenues next season. This will not mean any changes to the football or recruitment staff structure, but will give the club’s women’s side more dedicated resources to increase revenues, following a season in which they quadrupled the value of sponsorship of their women’s team alone and ticket sales doubled compared to 2022-23.