Olympique Lyonnais boss Joe Montemurro is firming as the primary target in Football Australia’s long-running search for a new Matildas coach after two other candidates signed on with rival nations.
More than six months on from Tony Gustavsson’s departure, FA is still to appoint a permanent replacement at the helm of the women’s national team – which means Tom Sermanni is almost certain to continue for at least one more window as interim coach, steering them through their forthcoming SheBelieves Cup campaign and possibly even longer.
Joe Montemurro coached the A-League Women All-Stars against Arsenal last year.Credit: Getty Images for APL
A squad for the invitational tournament also involving the United States, Japan and Colombia is due to be announced on February 4, and time has just about run out for any coach aside from Sermanni to be parachuted in before then. Indeed, Sermanni and FA staffers are planning as if he will still be in charge for their first match on February 20 in Houston, Texas, according to sources.
Montemurro, 55, has long been considered the outstanding Australian option for the job but signed a two-year contract with French club Lyon, the eight-time UEFA Champions League winners and home of Matildas star Ellie Carpenter, last year.
But that contract may not necessarily be an obstacle to the former Arsenal and Juventus mentor taking the job, since many such deals contain clauses allowing for coaches to leave if their home nation comes knocking.
And if Network 10 commentator Andy Harper is to be believed, they are.
Interim coach Tom Sermanni looks set to continue for at least another window.Credit: Getty Images
During commentary for an A-League Men’s match earlier this month, Harper revealed Montemurro was being courted by FA representatives in Sydney during the French league’s winter break. It suggests that the federation still believes it can coax him out of Lyon to coach the Matildas at their home Asian Cup in March 2026 – probably the last chance for most current senior players, including Sam Kerr, Steph Catley and Caitlin Foord, to win a major trophy.
Though Lyon is one of the most coveted club jobs in all of women’s football, the opportunity to win international silverware on home soil is also exceedingly rare. The trouble will be extracting Montemurro without burning bridges in Europe, which would be the risk if he was to quit mid-season.
In any case, Montemurro is feeling the heat after Lyon dropped their first game of the season, losing on penalties to Stade de Reims in the Coupe de France over the weekend – just the second time in 19 matches in all competitions that they have failed to win.
Even though it was only one result, such is the status of the club, the pressure immediately ramped up on him; Lyon rarely lose domestic matches in France and have won the Division 1 Feminine title in 17 of the last 18 seasons.
Few, if any, details have leaked about FA’s process or wishlist since Gustavsson’s exit, the day after their disastrous Olympic campaign concluded in Paris. But FA chief executive James Johnson said last month that “we know who we want” as the next Matildas coach, and that it was simply a matter of waiting until that coach was “available”.
There are no major tournaments for the Matildas in 2025, which means FA can bide its time and wait for Montemurro to step down at the end of the season in June – a much more palatable time for him to depart, from the club’s perspective – or, if Lyon’s fortunes worsened, for him to get sacked.
“We’d like to be able to make the appointment prior to the SheBelieves Cup, but we want to make sure that we have the right coach in place. And if that takes some extra time, we’ll take it,” Johnson said.
In the interim, other options are being whittled away.
Highly rated Young Matildas coach Leah Blayney – probably the best up-and-coming coach in the women’s game in Australia – was last week announced as an assistant coach with Japan’s senior women’s national team.
Now the former England captain Casey Stoney, who has also been touted as a suitable choice for the Matildas, has been taken off the board. Sacked by US National Women’s Soccer League club San Diego Wave mid-last year, Stoney was announced on Tuesday morning (AEDT) as the new head coach of Canada.
“It was such an extensive process we went through,” Stoney said. “I had my doubts at first, but the more time I spent with … the leadership at the Canadian association, the senior players that were involved, I wanted to be involved with an organisation that was led with real principles and values, the more I learned … the more I became very engrossed in the project and determined that I wanted to be a part of it.”
