Vukovic suffered the serious injury last month in training with his Belgian club Genk and is set for a stint on the sidelines of between six and 12 months.

But the goalkeeper, who turned 34 this year, is determined to get back quickly and has quashed any talk of potential retirement.

Vukovic is contracted to Genk until the end of the 2020/21 season.

“Other injuries they can give you a more definite timeframe, but with this they’ve given me six to 12 months,” he told FTBL.

“Of course I’m hoping I’m closer to the six months. But it’s more of a wait and see, see how things progress. It’s a difficult one for me to get my head around... It’s disappointing. Things are going really slow.

“It’s one of those injuries where six to 10 weeks is quite slow. I’m in a cast now, will be a in a cast for three more weeks and then a boot after that. Right now it’s a lot of resting, keeping the foot up. Pretty boring.

“It’s a really slow process after that. I’ve accepted it now and looking forward to getting through the recovery process. For me, it [retirement] was never really something I thought about. It certainly still isn’t something I’ve thought was an option.

"I want to play as long as I can. For me, this is my first long-term injury in my whole career. So in that way I have to consider myself pretty lucky to have only had one major injury in a 17-year career so far.

"Considering how well I’ve been going, for both club and country, I still want to remain where I’m at. It’s not crossed my mind. I’m attacking this injury the same way I do anything – I’m going to work hard and come back bigger and better than I was.”

Vukovic picked up the injury while completing a routine jumping exercise.

It means he will miss out on his first taste of Champions League football.

“Every week, earlier in the week, we do a plyometric session prior to going on to the pitch,” he said.

“That’s how it happened, it’s something that I’ve done pretty much every week since I’ve been at the club. It’s one of those unfortunate things, it was my last repetition of my last set and that’s when it happened.

“It was a terrible thing but it’s happened and I just have to deal with it. That’s when it’s going to hit me the most, when I’m missing out on Champions League games. And also with the national team, I was really excited about the year coming up.”

Vukovic joined Genk from Sydney FC in 2017 and has had an impressive two seasons in Europe.

He won the competition’s Golden Shoe award for the 2017/2018 campaign and last season the Blauw-Wit won the title.

“It’s been a perfect stepping stone for me,” he said.

“Definitely the quality over here is better than what I came from. It’s not the best quality you can play in Europe but it is a step up.  Initially it took a bit of time to get used to things, but once I got used to football’s like over here I started playing some of my best football.  

"It’s disappointing there’s a bit of a pause at the moment but I’ll be back.”