Sonia Bompastor on Navigating Emma Hayes' Legacy and Charting Her Own Path as Chelsea Women Manager

Chelsea Women manager Sonia Bompastor remains unfazed by any challenges that come her way. With a calm and open demeanor, she is always willing to answer any question with a smile. The Frenchwoman has seamlessly settled into her role with the Blues, making a positive impact on the team.

"We felt really included since the beginning and I feel like I'm part of the Chelsea family," she exclusively told ahead of the Blues' WSL clash with Crystal Palace.

"It's good because that's the best way for me to give everything and to be in a good position to perform. You never know until you join the club what is going to happen, but when I had my first conversations with Paul Green and other members of staff, I could feel this club was a special club with values and that was something important for me.

"I'm in a very good place, a place where I feel people have the same vision, the same ambitions and also the same values so it's really important because that's the best thing for you to give your best."

And for the foreseeable future, there will be natural comparisons to former manager Emma Hayes. The seven-time WSL title winner left Chelsea in the summer for the USA, paving the way for Bompastor's arrival.

But the former midfielder arrives with her own impressive CV as a player and manager in France - including the Champions League, which continues to elude Chelsea.

"It's normal for people to compare because she had such great success here," Bompastor said when asked how she felt about the comparisons.

"I'm really thankful to Emma for the legacy she left me. She had an amazing period and she had great results and the transition takes some time.

"I'm fine [with the comparisons] because Emma is a person and a coach who has a lot of good qualities, so I don't feel like people are comparing me to a bad person.

"If I can have the same success as she had at Chelsea, I will be the first person to be happy about that, even if I'm someone different. I'm not Emma Hayes, I have my own personality, I'm trying to bring my own ideas. Yes, some things maybe will be the same and some of those will be different.

"I try to find the good balance between building from the legacy Emma left and also trying to bring my own philosophy, own vision to the club."

'We're not where we want to be yet, but not far'

Bompastor likes possession-based football, controlling the midfield - perhaps not unusual considering she played there herself - and using pass-and-move football to create chances and exploit the wide areas.

"I'm very happy with the way the players are adapting to all these new things," she said.

"It takes a lot of time, but when you are a coach at a high level, you don't have time. It's about getting the results since the beginning until the end.

"But the players are adjusting very well, they are really open-minded and happy to learn. We are still in the beginning of the season and it's normal that we are not quite in the place we want to be yet, but not far. We still have work to be done."

And how far away were Chelsea from Bompastor's vision in a 1-0 win against Chelsea in their opening WSL game last week?

"It's really difficult to be really exact, but I would say maybe on the defensive work, 70 per cent. On the offensive one, maybe 50 per cent - still room for improvement.

"The result was good, even if I wanted maybe us to be able to score more goals. We had some good things in the performance, we created so many opportunities, and when you are not efficient, you just give more confidence to the opposition.

"In the last minutes of the game, they put us under pressure because they were trying to score a goal and maybe we could have managed that in a better way. But we are still in the process.

"I will take this as learning from that game to go into the next one."

And that poses a brand new challenge for Chelsea in the WSL as they visit newly-promoted Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park, live on .

"We're really excited to play a derby and to play away in a nice stadium," Bompastor said of the game. "Crystal Palace had a great season last season with Laura [Kaminski], she's doing a great job.

"For us, we also want to focus on ourselves because it's really important from the last performance we had against Aston Villa to reflect, move forward and wanting to have a good performance again against Palace.

"It won't be easy because this league is so competitive and we should never take a game for granted. It will be a hard game, but we just want to focus on what we have to do on the pitch in terms of performance to make sure we get a good result."

How women's football is improving in France

The WSL has grown exponentially over the last few years, with popularity soaring after the Lionesses won Euro 2022.

They reached the Women's World Cup final last summer too, losing to Spain. However, some players from the victorious La Roja recently commented that there has not been as big of boost in interest in the country as they would have hoped.

France hosted the World Cup in 2019, and while Bompastor says the opportunities were not seized upon at the time, there are starting to be positive changes in her home country.

"The French Federation realised and the clubs realised we need to work a lot more, making sure we have a league which is competitive," she explained.

"They made some good decisions in the last months. Since this summer, the French league is a professional league, so they are trying to work on the environment, trying to bring some fans in the stadiums, I know it's maybe the hardest challenge.

"They are trying to help the clubs to make sure every club is professional, so trying to have the best infrastructures, give some good money for the players to have good conditions of training, the facilities, infrastructures. They are trying to get to people to invest in women's games in France.

"It's never too late, even if at the moment, I think France is so far away from England and maybe from other leagues in the US and in Europe. So they are trying to catch up now and they are trying to make the good decision.

"It will take some time, but they are trying hard. If you have to compare at the moment, the league in France is not as competitive as the league is here in England, so it's one of the biggest challenge for them."

Watch Crystal Palace vs Chelsea in the WSL live on Premier League from 7pm; kick-off 7.30pm.