Even for the Heroes’ Match organized last week at Parc OL by Unicef, Sonia Bompastor struggled to come down under pressure and regain player status during a 90-minute friendly match. “She looked at everything on the pitch as if she were a coach, laughs Lyon striker Melvine Malard. I said to myself: “You are not a coach there Sonia, so warm up”. “The former left side of OL and Les Bleues with XXL awards (2 Champions Leagues, 8 French championship titles and 156 caps) has lived full-time in his new position as coach in Lyon, since his appointment on April 27. 2021, in place of Jean-Luc Vasseur.
If Sonia Bompastor had not then succeeded, a month later, in dethroning the Parisian leader in D1 (0-0), here she is on the way to signing a double championship-Champions League for her first full season on a bench of touch. Overcoming, on Saturday (7 p.m.) in Turin, a Barça favorite to succeed him, would be a very big blow for a group remaining on a worrying 2020-2021 season without the slightest trophy.
“Sonia brought us her culture of winning”
The Lyon collective has been able to pitch in Europe (defeats in Munich in the pool and in Turin in the quarter-final first leg), take an unprecedented slap in the Coupe de France in Paris (3-0), and present a less flamboyant attack than by the past (3.7 goals scored on average in D1, against 4.7 with Reynald Pedros in 2017-2018, and even 6.7 with Gérard Prêcheur in 2014-2015), Sonia Bompastor is a key element in the return of the OL in the foreground after the sudden halt in the spring of 2021.
“Sonia brought us her culture of winning, which had been somewhat lost in Lyon, says striker Delphine Cascarino. We see that with her, even when we are behind in the score, we do not give up. For her team-mate Melvine Malard, “Sonia is keen to get OL’s DNA back on the road, namely playing a good game and not just winning”. In this “Lyonnais DNA” immediately underlined a year ago by Jean-Michel Aulas at the time of Sonia Bompastor’s presentation to the press, it is difficult not to include her desire to install young players trained at the club.
The young Bacha and Malard are “very grateful” to him
With her, and despite a plethora of confirmed players, side Selma Bacha and striker Melvine Malard (both 21) have become essential starters. With convincing results, since the first is the current best passer in the Champions League (8 offerings), while the Reunionese has already scored 12 goals in D1, plus 3 in the Champions League, for her first full season.
So neo-international Selma Bacha knows what she owes Sonia Bompastor: “I want to thank my coach Sonia: she knows me by heart from the training center and she trusted me a lot this season. She always knew how to find the words to explain my different positions. She knew what she was doing with me and I followed her. I am very grateful to her because with her, I was best player of the month in D1 [en octobre et novembre] and I discovered the selection. “Same story on the side of Melvine Malard.
Sonia gives me a lot of advice. She follows me every day, she has known me since I was 14. She recruited me and I turned to her a lot when I arrived in Lyon, in the cold and without my family. She made me grow. She sometimes yells at me. It hurts but I know it’s for my good. »
“She has a clear goal with each of us”
The refreshing success of this Bacha-Malard left corridor is undoubtedly the main success of the 41-year-old coach. “If it puts us together on the left side, it is not by chance, continues Melvine Malard. She knows that Selma is my best friend and that there are these reflexes and this energy between us. “Accomplice” of his assistant Camille Abily, with whom she played for many years in Lyon, the ex-captain of OL Sonia Bompastor was destined for this career on the bench, according to Eugénie Le Sommer.
“She helped me a lot, as a player, when I arrived at OL, remembers the 33-year-old striker. She already had the desire to transmit and win, and that’s what she manages to bring to her team. I found the same person as when she was a player. “Namely a woman” always listening “and” very professional “, as underlined in concert by his protégés. “She has a clear objective with each of us”, appreciates Selma Bacha. And a collective quest which could materialize on Saturday in the most beautiful way possible, with an eighth Champions League to be lifted in the evening.
