‘I can smell success’: Montemurro aims for Asian Cup glory with Matildas

The fog has lifted. Just as Joe Montemurro was walking to the lectern on Monday morning at his unveiling as Matildas coach, the thick clouds behind him obscuring the iconic view of Sydney Harbour from Mrs. Macquarie’s Point seemingly evaporated.

Now, too, the path forward for the Matildas is clear at last.

Joe Montemurro has been confirmed as the new coach of the Matildas.Credit: Steven Siewert

It has taken 10 months for a full-time coach to be appointed, and there was only one candidate who was worth such an excruciating wait - one which players had long grown tired of, concerned that their hopes of Asian Cup glory next year were reducing by the day.

The challenge for Montemurro, and the Football Australia apparatus supporting him, is to live up to the billing.

Fresh off guiding Olympique Lyonnais to the French title, to go with the ones he has won with Arsenal, Juventus and Melbourne City, it was love for the local game that ultimately convinced the 55-year-old to leave arguably the best job in women’s club football and return home to coach Australia’s most popular sporting team.

“I assessed a few things, and I said to myself and obviously, my wife and family ... this is now an exciting cycle for the Matildas: the Asian Cup, World Cup, Olympic Games,” he said.

Joe Montemurro.Credit: Steven Siewert

“The opportunity was too good. Plus, there was something inside of me that was just telling me: it’s time, it’s time. I had to make a hard decision, a very difficult decision, but I believe the decision standing here now is the right one.”

Montemurro is an Australian soccer lifer, a man whose own playing career never hit any particularly remarkable heights; aside from a handful of appearances in the old National Soccer League for Brunswick Juventus, his biggest claim to fame was five years in Italy’s semi-professional ranks with Opitergina Treviso, which made this all the more special to him.

“I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to tell you how important this is to me ... the opportunity it affords me personally in my career and as a person to bring the game to the next level,” he said.

The mission to extract him from his contract at Lyon was delicate and protracted. Despite months of rumours linking him to the Matildas, which he also fuelled himself, Montemurro said he only signed his multi-year deal on Saturday, having secured his release over the weekend. FA overlooked him for Tony Gustavsson five years ago, and had another chance to sign him a year ago, when he was in the country to coach the A-League All Stars, but the federation hesitated; sources suggest they may have had to pay a hefty fee to Lyon to belatedly get him over the line, but better late than never.

Joe Montemurro and interim FA chief Heather Garriock.Credit: Steven Siewert

Interim chief executive Heather Garriock had a positive spin.

“I don’t think it’s a missed opportunity,” she said. “Everything happens for a reason ... to have Joe with a French championship under his belt is only going to help the Matildas.”

Montemurro wouldn’t go as far as making an Ange Postecoglou-esque declaration that he would win a trophy in his second season, when invited. He declined to even put himself in the same “category” as the Tottenham Hotspur boss, even though he is the only Australian coach with a comparable resume in European football.

“The only promise I make is that we will play an exciting brand of football and that the integrity and the level and the respect of the Matildas will always be at the top of my thinking,” he said.

Joe Montemurro with Louise Quinn (centre) and Katie McCabe, after Arsenal’s victory in the WSL Continental Cup final in 2018.Credit: Getty

But he did offer the following: “I can smell some success.”

Montemurro rubbed his hands together with glee at a question about his philosophy, and his tactical plans for the Matildas. As he acknowledged, what he had to say was what most coaches offer in these circumstances: a promise to play proactive, attacking football.

The difference is that he, unlike most, has the track record and knowledge base to actually pull it off.

“We want to control the game. We want to have the ball. We want to be able to control the game even when we don’t have the ball,” he said.

“You’ll see a team that will take risks. You’ll see a team that’s going to be brave. You’ll see a team that’s going to excite. I know no other way of playing football, and it’s a matter of now instilling that identity. But the beauty of it is that I think we’ve got some traits as athletes in Australia that can really bring that to life and really bring that in a special way - an Australian way, hopefully.”

Montemurro certainly has the tools, at least in the short term, to pull off something special at the Asian Cup, which kicks off on March 1 - a tournament he described as “winnable”. Though his remit also includes a much-needed evolution of the playing group - a process he acknowledged that caretaker coach Tom Sermanni had already begun - there remains enough star power at his disposal to realistically aim for what would be the team’s first silverware since 2010.

He expressed hope that Mary Fowler might recover in time from her ACL injury to feature at the tournament, noting that she was in the right environment at Manchester City to give her the best possible chance.

As for Sam Kerr, who is yet to return from her own ACL tear, and the vexed question of whether she will be his captain, he played a straight bat.

“Let’s get her fit and right and then we’ll have those discussions from there,” he said.

Montemurro was due to travel down to Canberra later on Monday, ahead of the Matildas’ friendly against Argentina, to address the playing group for the first time pre-match. He will take charge of his first game later in June against Slovenia at Perth’s HBF Park.