SYDNEY FC veteran Steve Corica yesterday announced the end was nearing in a journey which has taken him from Innisfail's junior fields to the world soccer stage.

The 36-year-old, who left Innisfail 20 years ago to pursue his career at the Australian Institute of Sport, tearfully confirmed he would retire at the end of the A-League season.

In doing so, he will draw the curtain on a career which has earned him 32 Socceroos caps and seen him grace English pitches during Premier League stints with Leicester City and Wolverhampton.

Corica yesterday said it was amazing that he had achieved so many of his goals.

"That was always my dream, that something like this would happen," he said of his
professional career.

"I was lucky that I was able to fulfil those dreams of which playing for Australia was the first and playing overseas the second.

"To start playing at the age of six in Innisfail, which was a long way from anywhere really, to working through the Australian ranks, it has been a dream come true."

Corica said he realised at an early age that a professional career was a possibility.

"I was maybe 12 or 13 when I started to think ‘I’m not bad at this, I’ll see where it takes me’," he said.

"I was quite young to think like that but if you’ve got dreams you have to try to make them come true."

Corica said leaving home at the age of 16 to link with the AIS had not only been a daunting move for him but was also a big decision for his parents to make, and he was thankful for their faith in him.

"It was not easy living by myself in Canberra but I think you can get over a lot of things to do what you love doing," he said.

Having spent more than 10 years in Sydney during stints with Marconi Stallions (2001-05) and Sydney FC (2005-10), Corica said his family’s immediate future remained in the harbour city but did not rule out a return to FNQ one day.

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