Sonia Bompastor Tactics At Lyon Féminin 2023/2024: From French Champion To Chelsea’s Hope – Tactical Analysis

Sonia Bompastor has recently been linked with replacing Emma Hayes as head coach at Chelsea Women.

English media confirmed the deal this week, stating that Bompastor will start her new mission this summer.

This means that the 43-year-old French coach will have enough time to implement her ideas, get to know her players, and perhaps succeed in bringing new players that suit her needs.

In this regard, it is very probable that Bompastor would suggest bringing one or some of Olympique Lyonnais’ players to West London to further consolidate an already powerful squad.

Bompastor was certainly chosen after extensive research and analysis of Bompastor’s strengths, weaknesses, mentality, footballing philosophy, and more to determine whether she suits Chelsea’s ambitions.

Nevertheless, some think that Bompastor is an overrated head coach who has only been able to win because she was coaching an already successful and star-studded team in France and Europe since Olympique LyonnaisFéminin won the UEFA Women’s Champions League on numerous occasions before Bompastor took charge of the team.

Others believe that Bompastor has what it takes to succeed at a team like Chelsea and that her efforts, ideas and tactics paid off at Olympique Lyonnais during her period with the team since it is not that simple to win two league titles in 2021-2022 and 2022-2023 and lift a UWCL trophy in 2022 after beating Barcelona in the final, PSG in the semi-finals, and Juventus in the quarter-finals.

Plus, they were able to qualify at the top of Group D with five wins and one loss in a group containing Bayern Munich, Benfica and BK Häcken.

This means that Bompastor did not have easy calendars with Olympique Lyonnais and was instead having to overcome some of the most powerful European teams that season, in particular, which makes her work valuable and deserving of credit, even considering that the players she had were also experienced.

Bompastor has also won the Coupe de France féminine in 2022-23, the Trophée des Championnes in 2022 and 2023.

Nevertheless, she failed to get her team to win European silverware consecutively in 2022-2023, as Olympique Lyonnais were excluded in the quarter-finals after losing on penalties against Chelsea.

The 2022-2023 UWCL journey cannot be considered very successful by Olympique Lyonnais’ standards, as they finished second in a Group with Arsenal, Juventus, and Zürich and were unable to reach an advanced stage in the knockout phase.

However, during the current 2023-24 UWCL edition, Bompastor and her team were able to bounce back and reach the semi-finals once again.

They will be meeting PSG after beating Benfica in the quarter-finals and topping a group that included Brann, Slavia Prague, and St. Pölten.

All this confirms that Bompastor’s achievements during these few seasons at Olympique Lyonnais did not come only thanks to the players’ talent and experience but also thanks to Bompastor’s ability to use adequate tactics to each game and improve the players’ overall performances while paying a lot of attention to both defensive and attacking aspects.

Chelsea have chosen Bompastor mainly to use the French head coach’s European success and help them win on a European level, a target that Emma Hayes failed to achieve despite her excellent results in the WSL.

The Blues were even able to reach the semi-finals in 2022-23 and were excluded by Barcelona, while they failed to qualify from the group stage in 2021-22 in a group having Wolfsburg, Juventus and Servette Chênois.

The best result that Emma Hayes achieved, however, was playing the final against Barcelona in the 2020–21 UWCL and losing 4-0.

That’s why Hayes’ results in the UWCL were quite good but did not completely satisfy Chelsea’s board, which has been chasing that European title for numerous seasons.

That being said, Hayes’ side still has one last chance before Bompastor takes over.

The team is facing Barcelona in the semi-finals and can reach the final and maybe even lift the trophy.

At the same time, Chelsea’s fear is to repeat Everton’s failure with Jean-Luc Vasseur, who was very successful at Olympique Lyonnais but failed to achieve what was needed at Everton.

That being said, Chelsea have a better squad and better conditions for success than Everton.

Furthermore, Bompastor can be considered more flexible tactically than Vasseur, which would make it easier for her to cope with new players and mentalities and adapt her ideas.

In this tactical analysis, we will explore Bompastor’s preferred tactics, ideas, and philosophy while highlighting the players who best suit Sonia Bompastors style of play.

The analysis will also tackle her preferred formations and how she likes to attack and defend.

Sonia Bompastor Preferred Formations

Before delving into the analysis of Bompastor’s preferred formations, it should be noted that Bompastor will be joining Chelsea accompanied by her assistant manager Camille Abily, who was with her at Lyon Féminin.

That will be essential to finding chemistry within the coaching staff and working better to find the most suitable tactics for the team.

On a character level, Bompastor always strives for victory, whether as a player or as a head coach.

She was even the captain of Olympique Lyonnais previously, which speaks volumes about her strong and leadership character in the dressing room.

She has often employed the 4-3-3 formation at Olympique Lyonnais, while also alternating it with the 4-2-3-1, as seen in the famous UWCL final against Barcelona in 2022, for example.

Bompastor is not very classic in terms of player usage and prefers to make positional changes depending on opponents’ defensive weaknesses.

That’s why we see her make positional changes up front, such as putting someone like Amel Majri as an advanced playmaker on some occasions instead of keeping her on the wing.

After joining Chelsea, who are playing according to both the 4-4-2 and the 4-2-3-1 formations under Emma Hayes, Bompastor would likely try all of the 4-4-2, 4-3-3 and 4-2-3-1 formations to see what suits the players’ abilities best.

Nevertheless, its expected that she will mainly focus on the 4-3-3 formation more than the other two, as that’s the preferred one for Bompastor.

The 43-year-old coach would most likely choose a defence with Zećira Mušović as the goalkeeper, Millie Bright and Jess Carter or Nathalie Björn as centre-backs, and Ève Périsset and Niamh Charles as full-backs.

In the midfield, Melanie Leupolz as a defensive midfielder, Fran Kirby and Erin Cuthbert as left and right midfielders

Upfront, Lauren James and Sam Kerr in alternation for the striker role, and Jelena Čanković or Johanna Rytting Kaneryd and Catarina Macario or Guro Reiten as wingers.

This would more likely become Bompastor’s preferred line-up as she is unlikely to rely heavily on the 4-4-2 formation as Hayes did.

Plus, it is expected that young players such as Aggie Beever-Jones and Hannah Hampton would get some considerable playing time as well.

Sonia Bompastor Attacking Ideas 

In terms of attacking ideas, Bompastor usually uses a plethora of attacking options such as early crosses, overlaps on both wings from full-backs, shots from distance and heavy reliance on midfielders’ attacking contribution, whether by penetrations, assists and shots from outside the box.

Bompastor values set pieces as well and always strives to score on these occasions.

Here is an example of a goal scored recently thanks to an early cross from the left-back Perle Morroni towards Eugénie Le Sommer, who finished the action with success.

Similar actions can easily be executed at Chelsea with crosses from Charles or Reiten towards James or Kerr, as both players are adept in the air and can capitalise on such early crosses, given their ability to move well without the ball to avoid marking.

Moreover, pressing can be crucial on certain occasions, and Bompastor adores applying fruitful high pressing on her opponents.

She would definitely try this high-pressing movement with Chelsea to confuse opponents and eventually create goalscoring situations out of nowhere, like Olympique Lyonnais recently in this action against Benfica.

The key to succeeding in such pressing actions is instructing wingers to always press high on defenders and the striker to always be ready to press on goalkeepers quickly.

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