‘They know what they need to do’: Montemurro out to take care of unfinished business

3 months ago 20

Joe Montemurro watched on television from Turin as South Korea frustrated the hell out of the Matildas. “I remember the amount of chances we missed,” he said on Tuesday night, recalling the 15 shots that were all off-target bar two. “And I think I turned it off with about 15 minutes to go and said, ‘Oh, it’s not good’.”

Montemurro was consequently spared the only goal of that 2022 Women’s Asian Cup quarter-final – scored by the prolific Ji So-yun in the 87th minute – that knocked Australia out of the tournament and kicked off a post-mortem which basically called for the head of Tony Gustavsson.

No one believed the Matildas would drop out of the 2022 Asian Cup so early.

The team had travelled to India with a full-strength squad and publicly stated ambitions to win the thing, and left facing questions about whether they would have qualified directly for the 2023 World Cup had they not already secured a spot as co-hosts.

The funny thing is that Montemurro was only in front of a TV in Italy and not pitchside in India because he was managing Juventus Women, having only taken that job because Gustavsson had beaten him to the Matildas one.

Now he does have the Matildas job, and the Asian Cup is approaching once more. The 2026 edition, to be staged on home soil, is close enough now that the draw has just been done and we can all analyse what it means in 50 different ways.

Australia are in the group of death, which is bad. But the Matildas often do well with their backs against the wall, which could be good.

Matildas coach Joe Montemurro with the Asian Cup trophy.

The pressure to win a long-coveted major trophy is a lot to deal with under the glare of a home campaign. But the home support can push them to achieve great things.

On paper, they should stroll past the Philippines and Iran. Except that odds on paper rarely mean much when it comes to the Matildas. And they have already beaten South Korea twice this year. If only they weren’t friendlies and counted for little.

Hey, at least South Korea isn’t sudden death this time. Although sudden death twice removed is surely still somewhere on the spectrum of needing a win or facing potentially fatal consequences.

The consequences of losing the final group tie to their 2022 nemesis would likely mean the Matildas placing second, which in turn would mean a possible quarter-final meeting with reigning champions China or North Korea – ranked ninth by FIFA, higher than France and well above 15th-ranked Australia.

Sam Kerr and Mary Fowler celebrate a goal against the Philippines in Perth in late 2023.

Even if they finish top, Australia could face a semi-final against Japan, to whom they lost 4-0 in February (again, a friendly). At least qualification for the 2027 World Cup would be in the bag by then. Another quarter-final exit would complicate the matter.

“I think they’ve got that at the back of their minds,” Montemurro said. “They know what they need to do in terms of fixing what was not a positive tournament in India. We’ve got the advantage of being at home, we’ve got the crowd behind us. We’ve got everyone in good shape, and picking the squad’s going to be an interesting one.”

Something not in dispute is that creative players will be best placed to break down Asia’s more compact defences. Which brings us to Sam Kerr and Mary Fowler.

The last time they shared a pitch was in Perth on November 1, 2023, when both scored in Australia’s 3-0 Olympic-qualifying win over Taiwan. Three days before that, the pair combined with destructive effect to inflict an 8-0 scoreline on the Philippines.

They were far from the only stars that day (special shout-out to Caitlin Foord for her hat-trick and four assists), but the performance did notably occur against the Philippines (Australia’s opening Asian Cup opponents) at Optus Stadium (the venue of said opening match). And, gosh, the symmetry would be seductive if Fowler does make a miracle ACL recovery and she and Kerr – also returning from an ACL tear – are involved in some capacity on March 1, 2026.

Of course, quite a bit has changed in the almost two years since.

For starters, a burning issue back then centred around the question of how to squeeze both Kerr and Fowler into the XI. What a privileged problem that turned out to be.

Then there was the will he stay or will he go of the late Gustavsson era, and the malfunction of the Paris Olympics that meant he went. And after that, the stagnant 10-month period that Football Australia took to appoint Montemurro as the full-time replacement, while interim Tom Sermanni – incidentally the last manager to lead the Matildas to an Asian Cup win, in 2010 – steered the ship as best as one can without a nautical chart.

Montemurro finally oversaw his first camp this month with the kind of experimental squad and mixed results that revealed next to nothing about where a transitioning team is actually at and how they might fare in the tournament’s most difficult group.

By contrast, Melburnian Mark Torcaso has now been in the role for two years instead of two months. He has also been busy strengthening his roster with youth and talent from a vast global diaspora, particularly Filipina-Americans, with ambitions of building on the side’s World Cup debut in 2023 under another Australian in Alen Stajcic.

No doubt Torcaso also knows the best-proven method for mastering the Matildas is to defend deep and invite them to take the initiative. Iran also know this, having defended (and simulated) their way to a 2-0 loss during those Perth Olympic qualifiers that could have blown out substantially.

This is where inventive players will be key, and up-and-comers Amy Sayer and Holly McNamara may offer valuable versatility. Other faces, such as the seriously underused Charli Grant and recent debutants Jamilla Rankin and Winonah Heatley, could also add broader depth.

That can certainly help, if we’ve learned anything from England’s Euro 2025 triumph from a group also featuring France and the Netherlands.

“We’ve seen tournaments now [like the] Euros where maybe not the best team won,” Montemurro said. “They found a way. So tournament football, there’s always going to be one or two games where you’ve just got to find a way. You might need a last-minute something to get us through.

“It’s my job to paint the picture of as many scenarios possible that we could face in a tournament and hope to make it familiar so we can get through.”

The potential scenarios are numerous. Montemurro can prepare his team as best he can, and we can select whatever evidence is most favourable to the theory we are positing. Really, though, none of us has the faintest idea about what will happen.