Joe Montemurro leaves role as OL Lyonnes head coach

Yahoo

2 days ago

Joe Montemurro has left his role as head coach of OL Lyonnes, the club have confirmed.
The Australian only joined the French club a year ago and led the team to the Premiere Ligue title, completing an unbeaten league season.
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Lyonnes, who were rebranded from Olympique Lyonnais Feminin last month, won 20 out of their 22 league games and drew two, conceding only seven goals while scoring 92.
Montemurro also guided Lyon to a Champions League semi-final, where they were defeated 5-3 on aggregate by Women's Super League (WSL) side Arsenal.
The 55-year-old began his head coaching career with Melbourne Victory and Melbourne City in Australia, winning what is now the A-League Women with the latter in 2016. He was hired as Arsenal manager in November 2017 and held the role for almost four years, guiding the side to the WSL title in the 2018-19 season.
Montemurro joined Juventus ahead of 2021-22 and won the league in his first at the first time of asking before finishing as runners-up in the next two campaigns.
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He was appointed Lyon head coach last summer, replacing Sonia Bompastor who had taken the Chelsea job following Emma Hayes' decision to leave to coach the U.S. women's national team.
Montemurro has been linked with a move to the Australian women's national team, who have been without a permanent manager since Tony Gustavsson resigned after the side were knocked out in the group stage of the 2024 Olympic Games.
Former USWNT head coach Tom Sermanni has led the team on an interim basis.
However, Montemurro told earlier this year that he had no plans to take the job at this stage while he was Lyonnes coach.
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'My intention is to see out my contract,' he said. '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.'
Australia reached the semi-finals of the 2023 Women's World Cup, which they co-hosted alongside New Zealand, where they were defeated 3-1 in the semi-finals by England.
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
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