Socceroos HIGHLIGHTS

'Almost ready to retire': How penalty hero turned career around to become football icon's 'mistake'

“I was almost ready to retire, ready to walk away from the game. “The drills we used for Vuka (Danny Vukovic) when Vuka was there (at Sydney FC) are completely different to the drills when I would stay behind and then work on when Vuka had gone in.” I was going to see out the length of my contract at the Wanderers and then just pour coffees and continue with my studies and that was going to be it.” But after one year with the Western Sydney outfit, the 32-year-old was ready to throw in the towel on his career. As a 16-year-old, Redmayne was invited to trial with the Gunners for two weeks in 2005 after impressing during a friendly playing for the New South Wales Institute of Sport. But that rejection, along with several others that had Redmayne on the verge of quitting the game altogether in 2016, steeled him for his moment in the spotlight in the Socceroo’s penalty shootout victory over Peru to book Australia a spot at the World Cup.