Andrew Redmayne will enjoy the spotlight, but the Sydney FC custodian owes his Grand Final spot-kick success to the forensic penalty analysis of Sky Blues goalkeeping coach John Crawley.
Redmayne, 30, danced his way across the goal-line and produced two saves from Perth strikers Andy Keogh and Brendon Santalab to lead the Sky Blues to a 4-1 penalty shootout win in Western Australia.
It is yet to be confirmed whether or not Crawley counselled those dance moves, but his penalty notes – which suggested that Santalab would dink his penalty down the middle – proved golden.
Santalab did exactly as Crawley predicted, and with his last kick as a professional footballer chipped an attempted Panenka straight into Redmayne’s arms, leaving Reza Ghoochannejhad to fire the winning spot-kick home with the next kick.
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Sydney GK coach John Crawley notes on Perth penalty takers.
Next to Santalab it simply said:
“Dink. Middle”
?— Adam Peacock (@adampeacock3) May 19, 2019
“When it comes to penalties sometimes you’ve got to be a little bit lucky,” Sydney boss Steve Corica told FOX Sports after the game.
“But JC [John Crawley] is meticulous on things like that – he gave Redders the right advice.”
Crawley, a former 'keeper for Chilean top-flight side Colo-Colo, played a key role in developing Danny Vukovic and Mathew Ryan into seasoned Caltex Socceroos internationals while at Central Coast Mariners.
The 47-year-old, who joined the Sydney coaching staff in 2015, has done a similarly excellent job in helping Redmayne iron out the errors in his game which were at times exposed during his tenure between the posts at Melbourne City and Western Sydney Wanderers.
Despite an uncharacteristic error-strewn performance in the loss to Newcastle Jets in Round 27, Redmayne has been a standout performer for Corica’s men in 2018/19, saving three penalties on the way – more than any other goalkeeper in the Hyundai A-League this season.
“We knew it was going to be tough, we knew it was going to be a tactical battle, and it was,” Redmayne told FOX Sports.
“Credit to the staff, they put a plan in place and all the boys executed it.”
This is my new favourite video. A career after football @redders_20 ?? pic.twitter.com/AoVsJMAuuj
— Daniel McBreen (@djmcbreen) January 23, 2019
Sydney FC defender Alex Wilkinson said: “Redders [Andrew Redmayne] was huge for us in that penalty shootout, and credit to our guys.
“No one gave us too much chance coming over here. Even through the season everyone wrote us off a little bit and didn’t think we could get there this year.
"But we always had the belief in the squad that we were good enough."
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