Andrew Durante makes 400th A-league appearance
Western United defender Andrew Durante reached to a remarkable milestone on Saturday afternoon when he played his 400th Australian league game against Melbourne Victory.
Durante
has clocked his 399 appearances to date between both the NSL and A-League, with spells at
Sydney Olympic
(2001/02–2002/03),
Parramatta Power
(2003/04),
Newcastle
Jets
(2006/07–2007/08),
Wellington Phoenix
(2008/09–2018/19) and
Western United(2019/20 - present).
The former New Zealand international says he never thought that playing to the age of 38 would be possible when he set out on what was to become an illustrious career.
“I remember when I was a young kid coming up, a lot of the pros were finishing around 32, 33 and I thought ‘if I can get to that age then I’ll be really happy to finish as a 32, 33 year old.
"Honestly, I never thought I’d be playing at 37, 38 but I still love it.
"If I didn’t wake up every day and love it, I wouldn’t do it."
“I had some pretty big injuries at the beginning of my career with broken legs, but since then I’ve managed to keep myself on the park pretty consistently," Durante continued.
“I’ve had a pretty long A-League career, and played pretty much every game and every season from then on.
“I was pretty fortunate I was able to do that."
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