“I came from a background in soccer,” says a sunkissed Bobby Dekeyser, the former Bayern Munich goalkeeper, speaking over Zoom from one of the many terraces of his Ibizan home. “Soccer was very rigid. It was about training not to look left and right, but forward, in one direction. It was a great experience, but I was happy to move away from that – I never wanted to be focused on just one goal.” Dekeyser was 12 when, after cutting off the cast of a misdiagnosed leg injury, he took part in trials in his native Germany for a Pelé-endorsed football training camp in New York. Selected from thousands of young applicants, Dekeyser spent a summer in the States before returning to stints at several German youth clubs and a bench position at second division FC Kaiserslautern. Dekeyser’s big break came aged 21 when he challenged Bayern Munich player Jean-Marie Pfaff to a penalty shootout in a car park after passing him in a hotel lobby in Frankfurt. “Sometimes a door opens an inch, and you realise that a chance has come to enter a different room completely.”