We all know the story of Andrew Redmayne saving a couple of clutch penalties after coming on as a late substitute for the Socceroos against Peru after an inspired managerial decision by Graham Arnold.
What wasn’t immediately apparent on the coverage was the mind games played by Redmayne.
Fan Sam Gowland who was at the game said Redmayne noticed the Peru goalkeeper Pedro Gallese had ‘cheat notes’ that were wrapped inside a towel alongside his water bottle. He would refer to the notes after each penalty.
“I was at the match yesterday and I think it has been overlooked that the Peru keeper had instructions written on his water bottle for penalties,” he said.
“At the first chance Redmayne threw it into the stand behind the goal.”
With Peru leading 2-1 in the penalty shootout, Gowland said that Redmayne took the notes and discarded them.
His claims have now been backed up by multiple camera angles with vision showing Redmayne walking behind the goals where he first throws Gallese’s drink bottle and then picks up his notes and throws those as well.
“Yeah that happened,” Redmayne admitted after arriving home in Australia.
“We spoke about it, if we had notes on our drink bottle, if someone saw that would be thrown a long way away.”
“I know how much it means to the boys and it was kind of like kill or be killed moment so I took my moment.”
According to the Socceroos fan, the Peru goalkeeper was searching for his water bottle aka ‘notes’ after the moment.
As many have pointed out, it probably didn’t make much difference to the result and if you’re relying on cheat sheets to win a World Cup qualifying penalty shootout you are in trouble.
However, it’s also something that can easily get into the opposition’s head as shown by this Twitter thread that indicates just how many mind games Redmayne played during that penalty shootout.
No doubt this story will continue to grow legs and it will add to the legend of Andrew Redmayne.
Nick
Roar Guru
Australia should never have been in the position of trying to qualify via two play-off games out of the AFC Yes they should have? Australia is rarely the 4th or better team in Asia. And Italy should never have missed out, but they did. Qualification is hard and it is not a given.
Ferno
Guest
That sounded patronized and xenophobic. Go to hell. :angry:
Loosey
Roar Rookie
In your opinion. Australia should never have been in the position of trying to qualify via two play-off games out of the AFC. I never said it would be easy to qualify, perhaps you are conflating qualification with ease of qualification.
Loosey
Roar Rookie
What has any of that got to do with a game played in Doha and what happened on the field of play? The team sets its own standards of sportsmanship, doesn't matter what others do. Have we forgotten how it ended when our cricketers took things too far?
Loosey
Roar Rookie
Read what I wrote. I’ve not seen many other keepers clown around like that before. Move yes but not wiggle dance. Won’t affect most top class players, smacks of desperation.
Brainstrust
Roar Rookie
How is it timewasting or diving? Goal keeper is perfectly entitled to move any way they like as long as they stay on the line. Goal keepers will dive one way generally just before the ball is hit anyway. Others will feint to dive one way and in the run up. The odd keeper will move around a bit this all part of the normal penalty routine. All Redmayne has done is to move around more and add the dance moves as well. An article in the SMH also addressed this as a sportsmanship which is ridiculous.
burgermeister
Roar Rookie
Not just that but also Peru / Bolivia's efforts to play competitive matches at altitude resulting in the altitude ban.
matth
Roar Guru
Makes for more eyeballs on screens, simple as that
Glen
Guest
Yep. Unsportsmanlike against a South American side??? It is not possible.
Nick
Roar Guru
So? Why weaken the world cup qualification process by letting more in? that's nuts. It's these "give everyone a medal for participating" crap comments that weakens these tournaments. Qualifying should be a sign of prestige, not some weak formality. Teams miss out. It happens.
DodgyDoug
Guest
Agreed, Loosey you need to check out Australia’s reception in Uruguay for a playoff back in the day. Spat punched kicked at the airport on arrival, shocking training ground,kept up all night at hotel by fans, taxi drivers, throwing a water bottle away is small change compared to some of the tactics used.
pete4
Roar Rookie
FIFA has 211 member nations to satisfy and they all fighting to only 32 spots every 4 years doesn't sit well for a lot of countries
Nick
Roar Guru
It's still a nonsense standard. World Cup qualification is hard in every region. It's only the "standard to expect" for about 6 teams globally. And we ain't one of them. Or, more accurately from 2023, we weren't one of them. Come 2026 with the ludicrous 48 team competition, Australia struggling to qualify will be a thing of the past. Asia is going get 8 teams allocated. The gap between the top 7-8 in Asia compared to the rest is ginormous. Qualification is going to be so ridiculously easy, it might be counter productive to keeping the team in the national attention.
Loosey
Roar Rookie
Never said take it for granted, I wrote the "standard to expect."
Loosey
Roar Rookie
It's called sh!thousery. If you want the game to be better than we need to cut out the gamesmanship/timewasting/diving, whatever you want to call it.
Brainstrust
Roar Rookie
Why would you keep notes near the water bottle and leave it on the ground . Stupid is as stupid does. I will go throw 100 bucks on the ground outside the methadone clinic and expect its still there when I come back next otherwise its bad sportsmanship. You do something that stupid you deserve to lose the money or the penalty notes. Remember the so called Maradona bottle incident in the Italy world cup though where he gave the brazil player a water bottle and then they fell faint. The Brazil theory is that they had a water bottle with pain killers. I question that why would they have a such a strong pain killer. My theory it was Maradonas cocaine juice he probably took so much cocaine in those days that he would have got withdrawal symptoms in the middle of the match. Something they need to bring in for AFL and NRL these days as well.
pete4
Roar Rookie
No country takes World Cup qualifying for granted. Ask football mad nations like Italy, Colombia, Chile, Nigeria, Egypt etc none of them will be at the big show Andrew Redmayne is a bloody legend :thumbup:
burgermeister
Roar Rookie
:football:
burgermeister
Roar Rookie
A keeper - a fulltime professional - who doesn't have enough respect for the opposition to learn the opposing penalty taker's preferred foot and penalty side without a cheat sheet deserve what they get in my opinion. Peru thought they were going to cruise through this game, they complained the conditions (which were the same for both sides), they arrived very late in Doha, and their press couldn't rubbish Australia enough. South American sides also have a history of disrupting preperations of visiting teams. Would say Redmayne did nothing outside of the laws of the game to get an advantage. It was gamesmanship pure and simple.
Loosey
Roar Rookie
That’s pretty unsportsmanlike. The way Redmayne carried on I’m surprised he wasn’t carded. Australia shouldn’t need to do that rubbish to win. Great to see them through but let’s not paper over the cracks - couldn’t make it through AFC, scraped through two play-offs. Hardly heroic. The sooner we regard WC qualification as the standard to expect, the sooner we take things more seriously with football development.