Victoria's Joe Montemurro has been appointed the new head coach of Olympique Lyonnais (Lyon) women's team on a two-year contract.
Lyon has won the last three Ligue 1 Feminin titles consecutively and were runners-up in the UEFA Women's Champions League after losing the final 2-0 to Barcelona.
Montemurro said he was extremely honoured "to be part of such an exceptional organisation as Olympique Lyonnais."
"When I think of Lyon, I think of high-level professionalism and excellence, the world leader in women's football," Montemurro said in a statement on the Lyon Club website.
"Playing against this team was always the pinnacle of football for me. It has always brought me joy and inspiration."
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— OL Féminin (@OLfeminin) June 19, 2024
Joe Montemurro flourished as a junior footballer in Melbourne, where his talent was recognised with selection in several Victorian Representative teams throughout the 1980s. He featured for Victoria in the 1986 National Youth Championships, a team coached by the legendary Tim White and comprising of future stars John Anastasiadis, George Jolevski, John Markovski and Andrew Marth.
Given the state of his boyhood club Brunswick Juventus, reigning NSL Champions at the time, his senior debut remarkably came in May of the same year. In all, he made four appearances off the bench for a club which featured Socceroo legends Paul Wade, Mehmet Durakovic and John Yzendoorn.
Ultimately, a move abroad came in the form of Swiss club Neuchâtel Xamax, before a transfer to Potenza in the Italian fourth tier led to half a dozen years playing in the non-professional leagues in the north of Italy. A return to Melbourne followed, at Thornbury United in 1996, where scored half a dozen goals in a middling season, before a move to coaching beckoned.
Montemurro cut his coaching teeth in junior football once again, taking the helm at Green Gully, Melbourne Knights and South Melbourne across various stints in the Victorian Premier League (U21s) and National Youth League, before a first senior role arrived in 2006 with Sunshine George Cross. He helped the Georgies avoid relegation in that season before parting ways with them midway through 2007. A move to State 1 saw instant success, guiding Coburg United (now Hume City) to promotion to the top-flight before the two parted company midway through their inaugural Premier League campaign.
A return to South Melbourne’s youth team in 2010 witnessed instant success, with the club losing just once enroute to the Championship. Montemurro served as Assistant Coach to Vaughan Coveny, Eddie Krncevic and Peter Tsolakis, before heading abroad to Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea.
He found his true calling with Women's football, appointed as the Victorian NTC Head Coach in 2014, before taking on roles with Melbourne Victory where he led them to the Finals for the first time in 2015 and Melbourne City, where he achieved the ultimate success in winning the W-League Championship in successive seasons.
In 2017, he was appointed manager of Arsenal's Women's side, where his attacking style and fluidity of possession saw him claim the WSL League Managers Association (LMA) Coach of the Year among a plethora of accolades.
Four years later, Montemurro found himself at Juventus where he went on to win the Serie A and Italian Cup completing the club's first ever treble winning season.