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Federici basking in the limelight

The little town of Nowra in New South Wales, Australia, will be keeping a night-time vigil as their soccer-playing favorite son stands between Manchester United and a place in the FA Cup quarter-finals.

Adam Federici, 22, will again be Reading's goalkeeper when the fifth round replay takes place at the Madejski Stadium with the Royals sensing the chance of one of the biggest cup upsets of the English season.

Federici's father, Tony, a Nowra estate agent, traveled the 16,000km to England for the first match at Old Trafford where a crowd in excess of 70,000 saw his son face Premiership opposition for the first time.

Tony stayed in England so that he could see today's replay and other members of the family are now set to join him.

For the first match, Adam's friends at home in Nowra sat up into the early hours to watch him make several crucial saves, none better than in the last few minutes to deny striker Henrik Larsson.

Now Federici will be playing in only his fourth first team game in the replay after leaving Australia to try his luck in England.

"I got a few texts from back home after the first game at Old Trafford," he said. "It was the middle of the night over there but lots of people stayed up to watch."
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