French women's league champions Lyon appoint Sonia Bompastor as new coach

Perennial French women’s league champions Lyon appointed former international defender Sonia Bompastor as their new coach on Tuesday after Jean-Luc Vasseur was sacked following the defeat by Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League semi-finals. Bompastor, 40, who won 156 caps for France, will be the first woman to coach the team that has dominated European women’s club football in recent years. Lyon have won the last 14 French league titles and the last five Champions League titles, but PSG dumped them out of this season’s European competition and are threatening to pip them to the league title. With five matches left to play, PSG lead Lyon by a point. Lyon said in a statement that Bompastor had been appointed as a result of a consultation process “to find the necessary mechanisms to allow the team to successfully finish a season that has been played in difficult circumstances”. The team has suffered from the long-term injury this season of Ada Hegerberg, the Norwegian who in 2018 was the first ever winner of the Ballon d’Or for the best woman player in the world.