Sonia Bompastor, the single-minded manager replacing Emma Hayes at Chelsea

A version of this article was first published in February 2024.

Life works in mysterious ways sometimes. In 2010, Emma Hayes took on a football consultant role at Washington Freedom, a team in the Women’s Professional Soccer championship in the United States, having been sacked by Chicago Red Stars. The squad she helped coach included Homare Sawa, Abby Wambach and a certain France international called Sonia Bompastor, who was named WPS All-Star player of the year in 2009 and 2010.

Following Lyon’s 2-0 defeat by Barcelona in the Champions League on Saturday, Bompastor has finally been named as Hayes’ replacement as Chelsea manager. The Lyon head coach was Chelsea’s chosen candidate to succeed Hayes, who left at the end of the season to manage the U.S. women’s national team (USWNT). Bompastor, who is of Portuguese descent and speaks English, was under contract with Lyon until 2025, as was her long-term assistant Camille Abily, who is making the move with her.

So who is Bompastor and why did Chelsea want her?

“Wow! What a brilliant player, honestly an unbelievable left-back with an unbelievable wand of a left boot,” recalled Hayes, speaking before Chelsea’s Champions League quarter-final with Lyon in March last year.

“A cultured and brilliant footballer, very quiet, cheeky, funny — the media might not always see that about her. It’s of no surprise to me that her and Camille have done well working together.”

“If you have one word about Sonia’s it’s ‘competitive’,” says France and Aston midfielder Kenza Dali, who was coached by Bompastor as a teenager at Lyon.

“Every single training drill was competitive. I was young, I was scared of her and every time they handed the bibs out, I was like, ‘Please God, not Sonia in my team. If I lose the ball with Sonia, she’s going to kill me.’ She was the type of coach you don’t mess with.”  But off the pitch, Dali recalls Bompastor being “a really nice human being” and a “good person”.

As a manager, the 43-year-old has been described by one French agent as “strict” and “hard”. She wants things done well and knows what she wants, characteristics reminiscent of her playing career. Bompastor’s experience for club and country — she earned 156 caps for France and captained Lyon to Champions League titles in 2011 and 2012 — has served her well in her managerial career. She is no stranger to the pressures at the highest level, is fully aware of the nature of this results-driven business and knows exactly is expected at Chelsea.

The club spoke to a handful of senior players to get a sense of the most important qualities they wanted from an incoming manager. While there is a natural preference for female coaches within the women’s game, that did not rule out a male coach getting the job and the sense from the players was that appointing a winner was the most important thing. Given the dearth of female managers at the elite level of the game, there were not many obvious candidates. Ultimately, Chelsea wanted someone who will bring them success.

On the surface, you can understand why they made Bompastor their preferred option to replace Hayes. She is a title-winning manager, including the trophy that eludes them, the Champions League, defeating Barcelona 3-1 in 2022. Bompastor, who played alongside commanding characters herself, also knows how to manage big personalities such as Lindsey Horan, Ada Hegerberg and Wendie Renard. There are obvious parallels to be drawn with Chelsea’s squad, which includes two of Bompastor’s previous players, Kadeisha Buchanan and Catarina Macario.

Having retired in 2013 — her penultimate game was at Stamford Bridge in the Champions League final — Bompastor became Lyon women’s academy director. There she built a reputation for nourishing young talent and, after eight years, she took over as manager of Lyon’s first team in April 2021 following Jean-Luc Vasseur’s dismissal.

At the time, Lyon wanted to integrate young players such as Selma Bacha into the senior team, which consisted of a star-studded squad of internationals from France and elsewhere, players of the calibre of Renard, Hegerberg, Lucy Bronze and Alex Greenwood. Bacha, 23, has spent her whole career at Lyon and has progressed through the ranks. Equally, Bompastor has been a key part of 20-year-old Alice Sombath’s development. Although Bompastor has never been scared to trust younger players, there is an argument that some have not maximised their potential at Lyon. Given the age profile of Chelsea’s newer signings, developing players in the first-team environment will be an important part of her new role.

It is hard to tell how good a manager Bompastor is, however, because she inherited a squad that had dominated Europe for so long. Perhaps more than at any other major club, the players make the team at Lyon. For a long time, the team relied heavily on stars who were at the top of their game but they have had very few standout managers.

Lyon won two league and Champions League titles during Reynald Pedros’ reign from 2017 to 2019 but, despite that record, he did not really generate a reputation as one of the game’s elite managers. Similarly, Bompastor’s predecessor Vasseur won the treble with Lyon in 2020 but was sacked by Everton after just 10 games in charge. Managers who have gone on to pastures new have not covered themselves in glory elsewhere, a sign of how large a role the squad has played in Lyon’s success.

The impression in France is that Bompastor’s record is mixed because Lyon are no longer the juggernauts they once were, crushing European opponents, even if they still won the league this season.  That is not necessarily down to Bompastor — other teams have invested and closed the gap.

When Bompastor took on the role in 2021, she spoke of wanting to find the “Lyon DNA”, alluding to the fact they had somewhat lost their identity. It is difficult to say whether she has rediscovered that DNA today.

There have been occasional criticisms of playing style and there is a sense by some who watch Lyon that she did not stamp her own identity on the team. By comparison, Paris FC manager Sandrine Soubeyrand has succeeded in instilling a playing identity with a recognisable system over six years.

Hayes’ shoes are huge ones to fill and Chelsea are undoubtedly getting someone who has won trophies. The question will be whether that translates to success away from Lyon.

(Top photo: Maja Hitij/Getty Images)