Joe Montemurro: Lyon manager ‘thriving in this pressure' as he prepares for Arsenal return

New York Times

18-04-2025

When Match of the Day, the BBC's flagship football highlights programme, came on at 11pm on a Monday night in mid-1970s in Australia, a young Joe Montemurro was supposed to be in bed.
'We were lucky,' he tells The Athletic. 'We had a black and white TV. My older brother Anthony used to come and tap me on the shoulder, take me around the back and sit behind the couch.'
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Montemurro recalls watching Arsenal legends such as Liam Brady, in his words a 'magician with the ball', Pat Rice, whom he has met in Arsenal's directors' box a few times, and goalkeeper Pat Jennings.
It is thanks to his elder sibling, a huge Arsenal fan, that Montemurro, who is also a Juventus supporter — a nod to his Italian roots — is a Gooner.
'One day he just came with an Arsenal strip,' says Montemurro, now head coach of Lyon, via video call from his office in France. 'He said: 'You're an Arsenal fan now'. I must have been about six or seven years old.' Anthony travelled to Europe to visit Highbury and sent back some 'really bad and out of focus' Instamatic photos of an Arsenal game. 'I'll have to dig them up one day for our next interview,' the 55-year-old smiles.
Fast forward nearly half a century and Montemurro, who never went to Highbury, will coach Lyon, owned by American businesswoman Michele Kang, against Arsenal in the Champions League semi-final at the Emirates on Saturday.
Montemurro knows Arsenal all too well having managed them from 2017 to 2021 during which he won the Women's Super League (WSL) and League Cup. He was also mentor to Arsenal head coach Renee Slegers on UEFA's coaching programme and still stays in touch on an informal basis with a few staff members and players such as Kim Little, Lia Walti, Katie McCabe, Leah Williamson, Manuela Zinsberger and the Australia internationals — Steph Catley, Caitlin Foord and Kyra Cooney-Cross — exchanging birthday, Christmas or Easter wishes.
It is not the first time he has returned to north London. In December 2022, he suffered a 1-0 defeat as Juventus boss at the Emirates in the Women's Champions League group stages. But this tie carries particular weight given the European trophy is nearly within sight.
When Montemurro left Arsenal in 2021 he told The Athletic he was feeling 'the burnout' and 'needed to take a break'. But that summer, Stefano Braghin, the sporting director of Juventus Women, called.
Montemurro won the league, Coppa Italia and Supercoppa in his first season but failed to qualify for the Champions League group stages last year. In March 2024, he left the club by mutual consent despite having two years left on his contract.
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'The direction that the club was going had changed from when I got there,' he says. 'There was definitely a change in terms of recruiting and growing the women's brand. The biggest catalyst was the massive change of the board at the top. They wanted to make massive changes in the women's team, which I didn't agree with. We just decided it wasn't the right thing for us all. We were quite happy to part ways, but very amicably. They were three fantastic years.'
From England to Italy and now to France, Montemurro has led three very different projects. When he took over at Arsenal, the aim was to get back into the Champions League while he took Juventus from 33rd in UEFA's rankings in the 2020-21 season to 10th by the end of the 2023-2024 campaign.
At Lyon, however, juggernauts of the women's game who have won the Women's Champions League a record eight times (but not in the past two years), there is a very clear expectation.
'On the global scale, it can set the standards for being one of the best clubs in the world, if not the best club in the world in its research, development and its football,' says Montemurro.
'You walk up the stairs and you just see all the accolades they've won. You're in an environment that is about winning at the highest level and being the best every day. I love it.
'As soon as you walk into the place, you just feel it, the culture of high performance. It has created a standard of being the best. The culture of people that they employ want to be the best at everything. It's sometimes difficult to explain unless you're here.'
Montemurro gives one example. After every training session a picture of the winning team of a small-sided game is sent to the team's WhatsApp group. 'Each training session has this level of competitiveness,' he says. 'Sometimes I'm actually scared of some players, touch wood, getting injured because the competitiveness is just incredible.
'The everyday standards are so high that you just can't hide. There's no room to not be at your best, you've got to bring something to the group. You're under that microscope every day.'
Lyon contacted Montemurro in April last year as they searched for a replacement for Sonia Bompastor, who was leaving for Chelsea.
'It was a call out of the blue,' he says. 'I (then) didn't hear anything. I was speaking to a couple of other clubs at the time. I was umming and ahhing: 'Is now the time to take those six months off?'. It all happened very quickly; they probably went through the ringer and the coaches they wanted didn't come up trumps. 'Oh, we'll interview this guy and see what he's all about.''
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In mid-May, within one week, Montemurro had presented to the club's directors. 'All of a sudden I was offered the opportunity to be part of this great club,' he says.
Some coaches would envy Montemurro's situation, given he works with some of the world's most experienced and talented players, plus the investment Kang has provided in terms of staff resources. But with that comes expectation and pressure, not to mention a different environment in his non-native language.
'Mal…very bad,' says Montemurro when asked about his level of French. 'It's purely my fault. I struggle to find the confidence to get up and speak in French and make mistakes.'
But given the diverse nationalities in Lyon's squad, the common language is English and Montemurro has made a good impression among the players, especially United States Women's National Team (USWNT) captain Lindsey Heaps.
The American midfielder thinks he has done a 'really great job' and has got them back to playing Lyon's style of football.
Montemurro, who was shortlisted for the USWNT head coach role, losing out to former WSL manager Emma Hayes, has brought, according to Heaps, the 'vibe' of 'freedom within structure' and allowed players to express themselves, to 'feel the game, feel the ball and value it'.
'When you have that feeling, it brings a lot of confidence,' she says. The head coach does not want to stifle his players with football structures and Heaps evidently enjoys that sense of liberty. 'Who doesn't?' she says. 'It's the best. For a midfielder in general, that's what you want. You don't like being put in a box.
'He expects a lot, he brings the standard as well. You get the freedom, but you have to do all the little things, that's defensively, the work rate, retaining the ball or winning it back.'
Montemurro wants these players to go to the next level and reclaim their spot at the top of Europe having been knocked off their perch by Barcelona. He has given the team 'micro-objectives' with a performance- rather than purely results-based perspective. Lyon have a frightening attacking line of Melchie Dumornay, Kadidiatou Diani and Tabitha Chawinga but one target was to tighten up defensively. In this year's Champions League they have the best defensive record, conceding just two goals so far, while other details focus on when to play forward quickly and when to keep the ball for longer and control play.
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Given Lyon's domestic dominance — they are eight points clear of rivals Paris Saint-Germain in the Premiere Ligue — a league Montemurro describes as a 'development league' and an 'exporter of talent', one asks where Lyon, who became a fully independent entity from the men's team in 2024, want to go.
'It's the ongoing question, isn't it?' says Montemurro. 'It wants to be a leader in the women's game.' But for Montemurro the focus is on 'football performance'.
'Bringing a style of football that is attractive (is the aim). As a coach I always want to play a possession-based and a proactive game, but that's the next level in terms of being a leader in the brand itself.'
The ever-ambitious Kang, who was critical of Lyon's set-up when she bought the women's team last year, has brought in specialist performance staff to elevate her team to new heights. The team's CEO Vincent Ponsot leads the sporting direction while Kang, who is in Europe two or three times a month, remains in frequent contact with Montemurro. 'We feel her presence and it's great,' he says.
No pressure to deliver, then?
'It's where you want to be,' he says. 'I thrive in this pressure. It's challenging your leadership and communication. Lyon thrive on this level, on the detail, the competitiveness of being at the top.'
Montemurro has 26 staff members, the largest cohort he has worked with, including nutritionists, psychologists and analysts. A wellness report for each player lands at 8.30 every morning to inform staff how best to treat individuals from a psychological and physical perspective.
'All this information that's coming back to us really affects how we can design a training session, how we manage loads during the week to effectively get a mentally fresher player and be a player that's also physically ready to perform at the highest level,' he explains.
Montemurro feels he has reached another level as a coach, not so much on the pitch, but as a leader and as a person. He has 'a wiser and more experienced approach to the game'.
'I'm managing my time and fatigue a lot better and all those things that come with coaching in terms of pressure,' he says. 'That's normal, the more you're in high pressure games or at big clubs, the more you experience these day-to-day scenarios. I'm at a good point and really, really happy with the coaching.'
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No wonder, then, that the Australian Football Association contacted the Melbourne-born coach about becoming the Matildas' boss following Tony Gustavsson's departure in August. Australian media have reported Montemurro is among the favourites to take on the job full-time from interim manager Tom Sermanni. But Montemurro, who is contracted with the French side until 2026, says he would not take the job at this stage.
'My intention is to see out my contract,' he says. 'I'm really happy here. I just wanted to be honest and clear. It's normal the Australian Federation called, and this was a while back, but at no point was there any need for me to think otherwise than to be and stay at Lyon.
'I'm just really happy at Lyon and where we're at. We've got a lot to achieve here and I hope to be part of it for as long as they want me.'
Montemurro's biggest challenge of the season so far awaits against his boyhood club on Saturday. Winning, and winning in style, is the expectation.