Is this the turning point for women's sport in Victoria?
On Friday night, the Matildas are set to dazzle a massive Marvel Stadium crowd with their football talent. And across Victoria this weekend, thousands of other women and girls will play in one of the many community sporting leagues scattered across the state.
But only last week, the Victorian government quietly cut funding from a prominent statewide program, designed to increase gender equality in sport. On Thursday, interim Matildas coach Tom Sermanni reignited demands for better funding, sponsorship and support for professional female soccer players.
The calls for more financial support - from professional leagues to community programs - underline the stark reality of women's sport in Australia, which is struggling to attract the necessary funding at all levels.
Victoria's latest budget revealed that funding for the Office for Women in Sport and Recreation (OWSR) would be cut. The program was created specifically to bolster the number of women and girls participating in sport by providing Change Our Game community grants as well as encouraging equal access to sporting facilities.
Another program, designed to support clubs that developed sporting programs which helped to address the issue of gender-based and domestic violence, was also cut.
Budget documents from 2021 prominently announce the creation of the OWSR, with a Labor government press release at the time saying that the funding boost will 'level the playing field for women and girls' and support dozens of projects.
The office received $3 million from the 2021-22 budget, and was allocated $2.9 million annually over the next three years.
The decision to cut the dedicated program is unnerving for community sporting organisations like the Darebin Falcons. Based in Melbourne's northern suburbs, the women's club fields more than 40 teams across AFL, soccer and cricket.
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'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. 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. 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. Loading 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.
