EXCLUSIVE: Lyon star Melchie Dumornay hoping for Women’s Champions League reunion with new Chelsea boss Sonia Bompastor and ‘revenge’ over a ‘beautiful’ Barcelona team

It always felt like Dumornay was destined to play for Lyon. After catching the eye for Haiti's youth and senior teams before her 18th birthday, she flew out to France to train with the perennial champions but, because of her age, couldn't sign a contract. When that obstacle was removed, she was smart. Signing for Reims allowed her to develop to the point that, in the summer of 2023, her dream move became inevitable.

“It was a dream come true,” she tells GOAL today. “Every day I spend at the club, it’s really magic. It’s something I looked at for a long time, and to win trophies and have a lot of good moments with the team. It’s an honour and a pleasure to be here.

“Before I was in Lyon, I already had the mentality of the club because I always wanted to win everything, always be better in everything, always be first at everything. It's my mentality also, so I think we match.”

It wasn’t easy for Dumornay to make an impact in her first season with the French giants. An ankle injury sidelined her for several months, making her involvement in the motivating team talk campaign with UEFA We Play Strong and Gatorade all the more pertinent, but she certainly made up for lost time upon her return.

Despite the team as a whole also being hampered by absences, the 21-year-old stepped up, delivering big moments in the Champions League in particular. Lyon had a nightmare start to their semi-final tie with PSG, going 2-0 down in their home leg after just 48 minutes. As the clock ticked into the 80th minute and the score remained unchanged, it looked like they were going to have a mountain to climb in Paris.

But up popped Kadidiatou Diani with a goal that gave them hope. Then, five minutes later, Durmonay bagged an equaliser. Better yet, within seconds of that strike, the Haiti star teed up Amel Majri to score Lyon’s third goal in six minutes, turning a 2-0 deficit into a 3-2 advantage. There was still lots of work to do, though, and only when Dumornay scored an 81st minute winner in the second leg, making it 5-3 on aggregate, was OL's place in the final properly secured.

“After I had my injury, I got a bit down,” the 21-year-old admits. “It was really hard to come back. But I made it necessary to do everything possible. I had a lot of support from my team-mates and the club. I’m really proud of my comeback.”

Ada Hegerberg, the Women's Champions League’s all-time top goal-scorer, was one of many missing for Lyon for that semi-final. Speaking to GOAL earlier this year, she admitted that she is a terrible watcher from the sidelines. “I lost my voice a couple of times during the semi-finals,” she laughed. So after watching Dumornay play a key role in Lyon’s turnaround, it’s no surprise she was full of praise for her team-mate.

“Melchie is incredible,” Hegerberg said. “I think she has something special. In the end, it's all about what's in your head. How motivated are you to become better, to take in from the ones around you? I remember when I came into Lyon as a young kid, having Lotta Schelin and Camille Abily and all these players, and I tried to soak in as much as I could, in order to just take those steps I could.

“I think you're damn lucky to come into Lyon and have these world-class players around you, to see how they behave themselves on a daily basis. It couldn't be a better development environment, so they're lucky as well.

"Melchie has something very special and she can only get better. I think you can see that she's really eager to become better. For me, that's the most important thing.”

It's no surprise to hear that Hegerberg has noticed that eagerness in Dumornay, as the 21-year-old admits that she is always trying to learn from the striker. Naturally a midfielder, due to injuries, she has often found herself in the No.9 role that Hegerberg has mastered. As such, there are few better players she could be nurtured by.

“I ask Ada a lot of questions every day when I'm with her, like on how to be an attacker, because my first position is midfield,” Dumornay explains. “I'm an attacker also but I'm in front of the goal more than I was before, so she gave me all the details and the way she looked at things is very different to the way I see it. Off the pitch and on the pitch, she's a big team-mate for me. We have a good connection.”

Dumornay has clearly picked up a few things, too. Last season, she scored nine goals in all competitions despite making just 13 starts. This year, filling the centre-forward role in Hegerberg’s absence, she has continued that momentum, netting four goals in her first three league outings.

Now, it’s time to bring that to the Champions League. Lyon kick off their campaign on Tuesday, at home to new-comers Galatasaray. After that will come trickier tests, with two-time winners Wolfsburg and reigning Italian champions Roma also in their group.

Dumornay describes her first experience of playing in this competition in a wonderful way. “The food we eat, it does not have the same taste,” she says with a smile. “The training, the ball, everything was different. For me, it was magic.”

There are some particularly intriguing narratives that could unfold for Lyon this season, too. New head coach Joe Montemurro, whose style of play Dumornay is clearly excited about, has two former teams in the competition that OL could draw in the latter stages, in Arsenal and Juventus. The woman he replaced, Sonia Bompastor, could also be an opponent for Lyon in the latter stages, having taken charge of Chelsea after winning the Champions League as a player and coach with the French giants.

“I knew her for a long time before I came to the club, because I was training with her and the U18s before, so I learned a lot from her,” Dumornay says of Bompastor. “She always put me in a good position so I could improve myself, even if I didn't know that sometimes. She is someone who knows all of my qualities - power, shooting, a lot of that - and she gave me more confidence when I played with her. I learned a lot with her to have more confidence in my strengths.

“I hope I will play Sonia, but as far into the competition as possible,” she laughs. “I think that’s what we want together.”

But the most telling insight into Dumornay’s elite mentality comes when GOAL asks about the challenge of facing Barcelona, the reigning European champions, the team that beat Lyon in last season’s final.

“Every player wants to show that she's the best, show what she has to show and that in big games, she can make the difference,” she says. “So of course, playing against Barcelona, it's the opportunity to show I'm one of the best in this world and to challenge their defence. It's the best moment to show what I can do.”

Would she want to play them again, to get some revenge? “Of course, I want to take my revenge,” she says, expressing a balance of excitement and determination. “I'm really excited to see if we're going to play against that beautiful team because they have a good team. To play against Barca, it's always a pleasure because it's always an incredible game.”

But a champion never gets ahead of themselves – and Dumornay is no different. “For now, we focus on us and we will be trying to be better and work on what we have to do better from last season, to give more trouble to the opponents we will face,” she says.

Given what she’s already shown in her limited time at the club, a fully-fit Dumornay would certainly go a long way in helping Lyon do exactly that in what promises to be another thrilling edition of the Women’s Champions League.