We recently sat down with the Blues head coach at Cobham to find out how one of the world’s best players and managers came to be.

Since her appointment, the Chelsea faithful have learned more about Bompastor through her side’s displays on the pitch, leading the Blues to a flawless start of six wins from six across all competitions thus far.

Now, it is time for the fans to discover the person behind the leader as she reflects on her humble beginnings...

The makings of a 156-cap France international naturally started at home, with Sonia’s love for the game formed by playing with her father – who also refereed matches at weekends – and her brother.

‘We spent all weekend at the side of the pitch,’ Sonia, who would become a formidable left-sided player in midfield and defence, explains. ‘It’s then that I started loving football. It was the only sport I wanted to practice.

‘I was blessed to be in that environment with my father and my big brother and to discover I really liked being involved in a team sport. Afterward, I was able to share these moments with my friends.

‘I often played just with my father and my brother who was a player, but I also played at school with my friends. When I tried to do other sports, I realised it was football I liked the most.’

But even though her passion was clear from such a young age, like many of her generation, to be a female football player was to be something of an outlier. Luckily for Sonia, she had the support of those closest to her.

‘My family helped me,’ she adds. 'When I started to play, it was little boys who played. When you were a little girl and you wanted to play football, it was not something that was allowed or encouraged.

‘It was not the done thing. I was the only one playing with boys and everyone was like, “Why is she playing with boys? She can’t be a girl”. I had this bad feedback, but my family always supported me and gave me the courage to keep playing.’

Sonia joined her first youth team at eight years old. Four years later, she would be playing senior football. As she speaks now, an air of disbelief that she made that transition so young remains.

But despite not yet being a teenager, this is where the foundations of a legend were built. Playing with and against much older and stronger players meant Sonia had to find a way to show her strengths.

‘I was really young,’ Sonia says. ‘I left an environment where I had been playing with boys and joined a level that was really interesting for me. I played with adults who were between 25 and 35 years old. It was a real difference for me. I was in the dressing room with people who were adults, and I was a kid, so it was difficult at the beginning.

‘It’s true this transition wasn’t simple at all, but it helped me learn to play with older people, and helped forge my character and gave me the mentality to fight on the pitch. It also helped me reflect. I was not as quick or as strong as the other players, so I had to be more intelligent.’

That Sonia became renowned for her reading of the game, determination and character is no surprise. Those attributes are, of course, still more than clear in her role with the Blues.

Soon after her introduction to senior football, Sonia was selected to join the prestigious Clairefontaine Academy. Here, she was exposed to a level of the game and facilities she had not experienced before.

But even with those experiences behind Sonia, professional football was not her goal. She says that was simply because it was not an option.

Sonia was semi-professional during her time at Montpellier, where she won back-to-back league titles in 2004 and 2005, and in her first three-year spell at Lyon, who she joined in 2006.

It was not until she moved to the United States to play for Washington Freedom in 2009 that Sonia considered herself a professional football player. Here, she says, she experienced a life-enriching two seasons thanks to new challenges on the pitch and a new culture away from it.

If professional football had remained to be only a dream and a career in the game had not been able to come to fruition, then what path would Sonia have taken?

‘I would have liked to have been a teacher at a school,’ she explains. ‘I love working with children. So a teacher or sports teacher, football teacher. One thing I love to do is communicate, and listen to experts in different fields, and share knowledge. It gives me a lot of satisfaction.

‘Communicating as a manager gives me the most pleasure. I’m someone who likes to share and exchange ideas. Every environment I have worked in has been part of a collective where I can share my ideas and learn about others’ ideas. Being in those environments pleases me.’

She may not have become the school teacher once envisioned, but as Sonia says, her passion for developing young people and sharing and creating new ideas is what led to her becoming a manager.

That journey began at Lyon, a club her career has been synonymous with. During her playing days, Sonia enjoyed great success with the club – something she would replicate in her time as head coach.

In her first spell before leaving for Washington Freedom in the WPS, she won three league titles in a row and the Coupe de France, helping establish Lyon as a force to be reckoned with.

After her time in America and a short stint with Paris Saint-Germain, Sonia returned to Lyon in 2010. Two league titles followed, as did two Coupe de France triumphs and two Champions League trophies.

She retired from playing at Lyon in 2013. Her name etched in the history books as one of the best to have ever played the game.

Upon retiring Sonia took up the role of director of Lyon’s youth academy; that passion to work with young people came to the fore. And in 2021, she took the reins of the senior team.

A new chapter of her legacy at the club beckoned. She had climbed the summit of the women’s game as a Lyon player and would do so again as their manager.

‘The most important thing was I knew it was the right moment for me,’ Sonia answers when asked how big a decision it was to take on her first head coach role at a club she had such an established history with.

‘I was ready and was at a club that I knew the journey of. Everyone was there to help me as well, and even if I didn’t have a lot of experience at that level of competition, I had the knowledge of women’s football and I had expertise at a high level.

‘Those two factors allowed me to settle immediately in my role as coach. Like I always say, I am someone who adores a challenge, and difficult situations give me extra motivation.’

She certainly stepped up to the challenge. Her three years in charge of Lyon brought three league titles, three domestic cups, and a Champions League triumph, making her the first woman to win the European competition as a player and manager.

And it was on club football’s biggest stage that Sonia enjoyed some of her career highlights on both sides of the touchline.

‘There have been many, it’s hard to choose – but I have to say winning the Champions League,’ she says. ‘The victory at Fulham in 2011 against Potsdam, as a player and as a captain, was a very intense moment.

‘And the first final I won in 2022 as a coach with Lyon against Barcelona, that was a moment I said to myself, "This is why I do it, to live moments like this”.’

Sonia has made no secret of her desire to lift the Champions League during her time at Chelsea – and she has very much found the new challenge she sought after leaving Lyon in London.

Yet it's not only trophies that our head coach has set her sights on. She may have won all there is to win, but there is always room for improvement, Sonia believes. That attitude reflects the person she is: humble and ambitious.

‘I love learning,’ she adds. ‘And I know there is also space to progress and improve. Even if I have experience, and that experience from Lyon helps me, I have arrived at a club that is different.

‘It is full of different challenges. But I adore that, because like I said it takes me out of my comfort zone.

‘Every day, I learn from others. Everyone has good ideas. Everyone has things to offer. I am very open-minded to those who ask me about my way of functioning. I was a different coach at Lyon to the one I am today at Chelsea in certain ways: in my relationship with the players, in my relationship with the media, in my relationship with the staff here.’

Her career has taken her from the back garden in her childhood home to several Champions League-winning nights and now to Chelsea.

That's why it is difficult to summarise in a few words the career Sonia has enjoyed thus far and what is still to come. It only feels right we end our interview by asking the woman herself how she reflects on it all.

‘If I think about the little Sonia who is six years old, with all those barriers in front of her, and the character she needed just to break down those barriers and go forward in the right direction, and the Sonia of today, I can say, yes, I am proud of myself,’ she says candidly.

‘It’s difficult to say that, because I grew up in a family where we didn’t really share our emotions, so for me to say that I am proud of my journey is something that is difficult.’