• "Sensitized" by the elimination of OL from the quarter-finals of the Champions League, Jean-Michel Aulas and his director general of football Vincent Ponsot officially replaced Jean-Luc Vasseur with Sonia Bompastor on Tuesday.

  • The former emblematic OL captain, during the first two European titles in 2011 and 2012, has just signed up until June 2023 with the Lyon club.

  • Director of the OL academy since 2013, Sonia Bompastor (40) will live her first experience as number one on the sidelines, with a coach-manager profile that has won over the leaders.

Four coaches in fifteen years, with cycles of at least two full seasons. Even more than in the boys, Jean-Michel Aulas had never distinguished himself by brutal changes on the sidelines during exercise since the birth of the women's OL in 2004. That was before be "sensitized" by the premature elimination in the Champions League on April 18 against the Parisian rival, after five coronations of rank, and an unusual second place in D1, five games from the end. "It is not the habit of the house but the stake is really worth the decision-making, it is an intimate conviction", revealed Tuesday the Lyon president, when justifying "the end of the collaboration" with Jean-Luc Vasseur, two months from the end of his contract.

Why this unexpected timing?

Because JMA relies on the “psychological” dimension that a change of coach can bring, before the real “final” of the championship, on May 29 against PSG.

A revenge in this shock would be almost synonymous with the 15th consecutive national title.

"A season without a trophy for OL women, that would be really special," says Patrice Lair, former coach of OL from 2010 to 2014. We therefore had to try something ... "

"Our game had probably disintegrated"

And this especially because of an internal solution which seems to have everything to achieve unanimity within the club, namely the appointment, from Tuesday, of the director of the Lyon women's academy Sonia Bompastor (40 years old), and this until June 2023. "Our game had probably disintegrated for a number of seasons", recognizes Jean-Michel Aulas, who aims "a supplement of soul" and "a different lever" by offering a first position on a bench in the old side of OL, from 2006 to 2009 then from 2010 to 2013.

"We wanted to put an OL DNA to this team, which is probably the best in the world, with one of the most prestigious players of this club," summarizes JMA, even if he was thinking recently rather of a role of "technical director of the club. 'OL' for Sonia Bompastor.

It is therefore a trajectory at the Rémi Garde which materializes for the one who has been at the head of the Lyon women's training for eight years.

At the start of the season, she told OL football director general Vincent Ponsot that she thought she had "gone around the project at the academy".

"Playful, she was already very picky tactically"

This “perfect marriage” (says Sonia Bompastor) between the club and her, many imagined to be celebrated much earlier. "She has always had a big mind, character and charisma, so I frankly thought that she was going to succeed me on the sidelines," recalls Patrice Lair. In 2014, one year after the retirement of the talented left-hander, the choice of Jean-Michel Aulas finally fell on Gérard Prêcheur (from 2014 to 2017). “I had heard of echoes but Sonia had been clear with me: she did not feel ready yet, reports Gérard Prêcheur. Her season as an assistant with me [in 2014-2015] and her long experience at the academy were a good transition. "

Difficult to find someone to express doubts about the success of the captain in the first two Champions Leagues won by OL, in 2011 and 2012. "A player, she was already very tactical," recalls Patrice Lair. , who had struggled to bring her back to Lyon in 2010, just like her new assistant Camille Abily, when she had left a year earlier in the American championship then at PSG, quarreled with the Lyon coach of the Farid Benstiti period. Another clash, a few years later, with the French coach Bruno Bini, says a lot about the strong character of the person concerned. Gérard Prêcheur, who also had her as a student at the France pole of Clairefontaine at the end of the 1990s, confirms.

It is not in his nature to be conventional.

She had enough personality to voice her opinion when she didn't agree with me.

And then she is a competitor with a leadership temperament, and someone who is loyal.

"

An under-exploited Lyon academy?

Someone capable of reminding their president of the importance of "making room", in a dense professional workforce, for the most promising players in the academy.

“It is important that she defends her ideas, appreciates Patrice Lair.

His arrival is good news for Lyon training because they will seek to rely on the young people of the club.

In my opinion, there are far too many foreigners in the squad of the first team.

"

For eight years and the assumption of function of Sonia Bompastor at the academy, only Delphine Cascarino, Selma Bacha and Melvine Malard have truly integrated the professional team.

While waiting to extend this list, the new OL coach detailed his first projects, at the end of the season which could be the first without a trophy for the club since 2005-2006.

"We must find the identity of the game in Lyon"

“We have a team to go for the title, which is obviously the priority objective,” she assumes. We must relaunch a dynamic, and find the identity of the game in Lyon. It's part of my philosophy: to set up an ambitious game project, which gives back the notion of pleasure to the players. OL must win with a game of possession, starting from behind, putting a lot of collective energy, with a conquering state of mind ”. So many principles lost at OL since 2017, with Reynald Pedros and especially with Jean-Luc Vasseur.

Friday (6.30 p.m.) against Le Havre, OL players will therefore, for the first time in the club's history, be trained by a woman.

“Sonia is made for that, we have been convinced of it for a long time, insists Vincent Ponsot.

She is a former player, she has a track record, she knows what the culture of winning is, she has OL DNA, all the boxes are filled.

"Sonia Bompastor has five games to avoid a resounding white season at her" club of heart ".

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