Joe Montemurro now holds arguably the most important job in Australian football. The A-Leagues legend is at the forefront of an exciting new era for the CommBank Matildas.
In his introductory press conference on Monday, Montemurro labelled the Matildas as “one of the best brands in the world”. This is a national team who regularly pack out stadiums after capturing the hearts and minds of the wider Australian public after reaching the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup semi-finals.
There are also greater expectations on the Matildas amid the added attention, especially with the 2026 AFC Women’s Asian Cup looming on home soil.
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But Montemurro is no stranger to pressure. Just look at his resume and the clubs he has worked at. Along with a pair of Championships at Melbourne City, he also created history in 2015-16 after the team went through the entire women’s campaign without dropping a point.
The Melbournian went on to deliver a Women’s Super League title to Arsenal after being prised away from City in 2017. He then claimed an unprecedented treble at Italian giants Juventus before winning the league with European juggernaut Lyon this season.
Another coach who successfully graduated from the A-Leagues, it has been an incredible journey for the 55-year-old, one that was triggered by an “out of the blue” moment in the humble surrounds of the Victorian state leagues 19 years ago.
Eyebrows were raised when historic club Caroline Springs George Cross, then known as Sunshine George Cross before relocating and changing their name in 2019, turned to an unproven 37-year-old in March 2006.
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That man was Montemurro. The former Australian midfielder – who called time on his playing career aged 28 – had no prior senior coaching experience before taking on the role at George Cross amid the serious threat of relegation.
Montemurro, who was plucked from his youth coaching role at storied Australian side and 2000 Club World Cup participants South Melbourne, masterminded a shock victory over his former employer in his debut match.
George Cross went on to avoid the drop from the what was then known as the Victorian Premier League.
“I was doing youth-team stuff at South Melbourne,” Montemurro told aleagues.com.au previously, recalling his first senior coaching role with George Cross.
“Just enjoying it from that perspective and I got a call from [George Cross board members] Lewis Cassar and Charlie Borg at the time.
“They said ‘we’ve looked at you the last year or two and you’ve done really well. We’d love to give you an opportunity at George Cross’. I said I haven’t coached senior football and I really didn’t have an intention of coaching senior football, it was quite out of the blue.
“Having bit of success at youth level and always trying to learn. It was probably the best learning phases of my life, going into the lion’s den because George Cross is a pretty brutal club. Everyone is pretty straight forward and you have to get credit to that. I learnt a lot. I learnt a lot in terms of just starting to instil ideas and sticking to them because everyone has an opinion of who should play. You had to be pretty tough. I credit George Cross for having the guts to take a punt on a young coach. They’ve always done that, given unknowns an opportunity.”
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Montemurro flipped former NSL club George Cross on their head, changing the way the team trained and played. The approach to football was something not seen before in Sunshine, who had re-emerged from the depths of Victoria’s third tier to the top division in consecutive seasons previously.
“There were two things – the political side and football side. The football side, they were obviously a club always in survival mode and I tried to pull away from that,” Montemurro said.
“I tried to say, okay, we have to try to play some football here, somehow have an opportunity of maybe controlling the game a bit instead of all-hands-on deck. We didn’t have the expenditure. It was the time at the end of the NSL and there were NSL players demanding a lot of money.
“I basically cleaned out the squad and reduce the budget. There were a lot of players loyal to the old coach and that’s understandable – Chris Taylor is a great coach. And then I just tried to instil a couple of young players. We threw them in there to stabilise the team and let the football do the talking, instead of worrying about signing big superstars and spending money they didn’t have.
It was pretty ballsy at the time. Who is this guy, it’s his first coaching gig, he can go and get big players and rely on these experienced guys and he’s saying, no not really, I’m not gonna do it that way. I’m going to do it sustainable and the right way.
“There were a lot of people against me, there were a lot of people who wanted my head because I was a nobody and they wanted their own guy. That’s fine, that’s coaching, everyone has an opinion. But it was great learning. We saved the team. We saved the budget.”
After various roles with Hume City and South Melbourne in men’s football, Montemurro landed at Melbourne Victory and Melbourne City, where he delivered back-to-back Ninja A-League titles while he also worked as an assistant to the men’s A-League outfit.
Montemurro created history in 2015-16 after City went through the entire women’s campaign without dropping a point.
He had a 77% win rate as head coach of City across the 2015-16 and 2016-17 A-League Women seasons – the highest win rate of any coach in that time, per Opta.
“The whole belief in the women’s program was so high on the priority list,” Montemurro said of City. “I even liked the fact they waited and got the foundations right before they launched the team. So that was two years in the planning. The biggest achievement for me was the fact that we created a base for the legacy to continue on.
“I still think the Melbourne City program is still one of the benchmark programs in Australian women’s football. Everyone says we had the biggest budget but we didn’t, we were just a bit more creative with how we did things.”
Montemurro has not looked back, shaping Australian football and leaving a legacy wherever he has been.
Legacy and leaving a foundation for clubs to build on is something Montemurro is big on. Having a strong but adaptable philosophy is at the heart of his success.
“I want to be able to leave a situation here, or create a situation here, that every young female player dreams of the opportunities that are going to be given to them in the national team pathway,” Montemurro told reporters on Monday.
