Joe at Juve: How can Montemurro drive Juventus Women to European success – tactical analysis

Joe Montemurro has been the head coach of Arsenal Women since November 2017 and after resigning from his team at the end of this season, he is going to coach Juventus Women following the departure of Rita Guarino who won four Serie A Women titles, one Italian cup and one Italian Super Cup with the team. This news meant that Juventus and Montemurro are planning to get the team to a higher level and compete with more impact at the European level in order to reach the goals that they set. Montemurro’s time at Arsenal showed that he is a creative, intelligent and adaptable head coach who knows how to deal with the different situations that he encounters while improving the qualities and performances of his players in the way that helps the team win games.

In this tactical analysis, we will explore Montemurro’s tactics, philosophy and how he can apply his ideas to make Juventus stronger especially on a European level since with Guarino they were not able to do much in UEFA Women’s Champions League when they faced some of the bigger teams like Barcelona and Olympique Lyonnais.

Montemurro’s tactics at Arsenal

Montemurro won the FAWSL title of 2018/2019, the FA Cup of 2018, reached UEFA Womens Champions League Quarter Finals and challenged seriously for the FA Womens League Cup as well by finishing as runners’ ups in these both competitions. He relied on a plethora of playing systems and formations, including mainly the 4-2-3-1, the 4-3-3 and more while adapting to the opponents he plays against. Montemurro was not an easy opponent for Chelsea and Manchester City in the FAWSL as he was able to beat them several times and prove that Arsenal are a very solid team.

In fact, we can also say that the 4-3-3 formation was Montemurro’s preferred formation at Arsenal with Manuela Zinsberger as a goalkeeper, Lotte Wubben-Moy and Leah Williamson as centre-backs, Katie McCabe as a left-back and Noëlle Maritz as a right-back, Kim Little, Jill Roord and Daniëlle van de Donk as as central midfielders and Beth Mead, Caitlin Foord as wingers to support Vivianne Miedema, the team’s striker.

At Arsenal, Montemurro relied on Miedema a lot in attack to move between the lines and be clinical inside the penalty area, while at the same time he focused on improving the quality of passing and of penetrations of his wingers Foord and Mead, and the result was obvious especially this season. Arsenal finished third in the league and they could have done even better given the quality of squad Montemurro built over these seasons.

Montemurro’s Arsenal relied on excelling at set-pieces as well and this was clear from the number of goals scored especially from corners. And in this regard, Miedema and Wubben-Moy stood out as the best of the team in aerial duels and in scoring from these set-pieces even in complex situations, like you can see in this example.