Vukovic replaced Brad Jones at half-time at Craven Cottage.

The Genk keeper was kept busy in the second half, before giving away a penalty in the final few minutes, just to save Miguel Borja's spot-kick.

It capped off a memorable night for Vukovic, who also turned 33 today. "It’s an amazing birthday present, one I won’t forget," he said.

"To make my debut, to save a penalty. I’m disappointed I gave the penalty away in the first place but the main thing is I made the save. I was surprised before the game that my family was here, I wasn’t expecting them to be here. So its been an amazing night.

"For me it was my first game, there’s certainly a lot of things to learn from what happened in the 45 minutes that I played.

"But overall I’m very happy with the result and how I’ve gone. It’s nice to have finally made my debut. My first camp was before the 2006 World Cup and its been a long time coming I feel."

Vukovic dived low to his left to thwart Borja and keep Colombia goalless.

"To be honest I was still really upset at myself for giving it away," he admitted.

"For some reason I had a feeling it was going to go that way. We study the penalties before the game, the three keepers and Tony Franken the goalkeeping coach. I just felt it was going to go that way and it wasn’t the best struck penalty, but I’m just happy I made the save."

Australia gave a much improved performance from the one against Norway four days ago, one full of character and fight.

Vukovic believed the Socceroos deserved a draw against La Tricolor.

"I think we defended really well," he said.

"We made it difficult for them. They did have a few chances, they hit the post a few times. I felt there was a few decisions where they might have been offside, but overall we can be really happy with that result against really good opposition.

"They beat France only a few days ago and they couldn’t score against us tonight. We take a lot of confidence from that."