Griedge Mbock and Sonia Bompastor during the Olympic Games in Juventus
This Wednesday (6:45 p.m.), Sonia Bompastor will sit for the hundredth time on the OL bench against Slavia Prague. Since taking office at the end of the 2020-2021 season, the coach has continued to raise his standards.
She was the first surprise. Tuesday, Sonia Bompastor discovered by us that she was going to become a hundred years old this Wednesday (6:45 p.m.) for the last group match of this Champions League. Against the Slavia Prague and this sporting opposition without challenges, the coach will lead her 100th match with OL. Quite a journey for the former director of the Academy for women who arrived at short notice in April 2021 to replace Jean-Luc Vasseur for OL’s first season without a single title. Since then, the Lyon club has recovered well under the orders of Bompastor.
While waiting to continue the harvest of this second part of the season, a Champions League, two champion titles and as many champion trophies, as well as a Coupe de France have come to add a little more to the Fenottes trophy cabinet. “I wasn’t aware (of the 100 matches). You know what OL represents, it’s my favorite club. I have a lot of ties to it. It’s symbolic, but it also rewards long-term work.”
High standards in the service of excellence
When the “Club of Hundreds” was an institution on the Gerland side, passing this symbolic milestone at Décines necessarily represents something for Sonia Bompastor. Legend of the Lyon club for six seasons as a player and captain, the former full-back took up the torch of transmission to make OL a winning machine again. If the game offered last season left one wanting at times, making his former mentor Gérard fume Preacher, the first six months of this exercise have been almost perfect. We could say of her that she is eternally dissatisfied, and she readily admits this, however, she has managed for almost three years to mix authority and gentleness to satisfy everyone.
In a team like OL and its high ambitions, there are always difficult endings (Bouhaddi, Henry, Brown,…) but her experience as a player has allowed Sonia Bompastor to better understand these difficult cases of conscience. This Wednesday evening, with qualification for the quarters and 1st place already in her pocket, the native of Blois will be able to take advantage of the moment, even if this milestone is above all anecdotal. But to celebrate this 100th, “playing a Champions League match at Parc OL, the image is beautiful”she conceded on the eve of the match.
Another year and a half of contract and after?
She will not be sentimental, because that is not the style of the house, but a new demonstration from her team will be the best gift that her players can give her. Forever the first woman to win the Champions League as a player and coach, Sonia Bompastor still intends to write a few pages of its history and that of OL, “taking a lot of pleasure, because this job is a passion”.
Having been extended until June 2025 by “a management which showed him its mark of confidence”, the Lyon coach wants to once again make OL shine on the European scene. First, why not a new challenge? Its former president, Jean-Michel Classes, pushed and still pushes into the FFF offices to see her one day take the reins of the France team. But that’s another story.
2024-01-31 09:04:01
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