The new Chelsea women’s manager, Sonia Bompastor, has called for the WSL fixture scheduling to be kinder to English clubs competing in the Champions League. The former Lyon manager, who took over from Emma Hayes and described herself as “so competitive and a really bad loser”, highlighted the scheduling of big league matches around the showpiece tournament’s fixtures as a key difference between the French and English leagues.
“Sometimes when you play a midweek Champions League game, you still have to play your very big game on weekends against Arsenal, Manchester City or United,” she said. “Three competitive games and this is really difficult for the players to be able to perform with not a lot of recovery between the games.”
In France and some other European leagues, giving their teams the best possible chance in Europe is factored into their domestic scheduling. “Any time we were playing a Champions League game in the middle of the week, the French federation were the ones who are making sure we are not playing a big team in the league, just to help us to perform in the Champions League,” said Bompastor.
“This is something really good and maybe this is something we will need to work on with the FA [or the new owners of the WSL, the Women’s Professional Leagues Ltd].”
Bompastor’s introduction to the problem is a sharp one, with Chelsea scheduled to play Manchester United before their opening Champions League group game in October and Arsenal on the weekend after and before their second group game. Games against Liverpool (who finished fourth last season) and Manchester City similarly fall around their third and fourth group games.
The manager said she will “try to use my voice” when it was pointed out this was something Hayes and other managers in the league feel strongly about.
After being questioned when Chelsea had first approached her about the position, the 44-year-old Frenchwoman asked the press officer if she was allowed to share the information before joking that she could not understand the question. However, she said “almost since Emma said ‘I’m leaving’, just a few weeks after, I knew I was becoming the new coach for Chelsea. But we kept the secret until March? February?”
Bompastor, who had Hayes as an assistant coach when she was a player in the US, has spoken with the Olympic gold medal-winning manager about Chelsea. “She was supportive and trying to help me, for me to come in and have a quick start,” Bompastor said.
“She’s been really good to me and it was important for me to have these conversations with her, because, as you know, she spent so much time in this club. She’s the one who knows the club by heart so it was important for me to have her feedback.
“She gave her life to the club. The base is really good and she left the club in such a great position. But I was not expecting anything else from her.”
