That Dancing Goalie That Sent Australia To The World Cup Is The King Of Mental Warfare After Also Sabotaging Peru's Goalie

[Source] - He had completed a barista course about three years prior, he said, because he’d been fed up with football and ready to retire at 27 to work at a friend’s cafe. Dropped to the bench and maligned by many fans for no reason in particular, the daily grind had taken its toll.

Redmayne’s original career plan had been to finish his degree while playing and then become a primary school teacher. But when he started dreading the very thought of football, he quietly spoke with his wife and his financial advisor.

“It was set in motion,” he said that day at the coffee machine. “It was financially viable just to work in one of my mate’s cafes and do uni during the day and probably just NPL at night. I was happy to see out my time at Wanderers, then move back to Melbourne.

At the very moment he was ready to throw in the towel, something happened. In January 2017 he was sent to Graham Arnold’s Sydney FC on a swap deal. The move reunited him with his first goalkeeping coach, John Crawley, the man who also developed the Socceroos’ No 1 Mat Ryan.

In case you missed it yesterday Australia beat Peru in a playoff for a World Cup bid. Let me a little more specific here, they beat Peru in a penalty shootout after subbing on a goalie in the 119th minute who went viral: 

Naturally the story gets weirder. We'll get into the almost retiring, but how about the mental warfare king here? The dude saw that Peru's goalie had a water bottle with instructions for how Australia's players take their PKs. Not uncommon to have that, in fact very common. However, old Andrew Redmayne here decided enough was enough and he was making it advantage Australia: 

Just an all-around great move. This is what you do when you're the backup goalie but PK specialist. Win by any means necessary. That's what he did and should be applauded for that. Australia is in the World Cup and Peru is not. Should have a keeper like Redders here. 

As for retiring? Of course he did. This is the standard World Cup story. There are the Messi's of the world and all that. But also there are these guys. Guys that were trying anything to stay alive in the soccer world. Talking about being a barista and a teacher. Now he's a hero to a country.