‘‘When you’re chasing your dream, it’s about the choices you make—not sacrifices. Since I chose to leave my family, my friends, and my hometown to move to Athens, I believe I have what it takes to see it through."

Konstantinos Tzolakis grew up in Chania, a harbour city on Crete where mountains drop into the sea, and where his family has kept its private life closed to the press. One figure keeps surfacing in the stories, though: his father. At twelve the boy joined Platanias, the local club, and soon captained the under-15s, then leapfrogged most of the under-17 level because everyone in Chania had already noticed his gift. By fifteen he was standing between the posts of the under-20s, still short of his sixteenth birthday.

Piraeus came calling that summer, and Olympiacos took him into their academy, a leap from island quiet to the noise of the mainland's biggest club. School kept pace with football. He sat his exams for the third year of lyceum ahead of a preseason camp in Poland, skipped the holidays his friends enjoyed, and spent the summer training in the mountains of Poland and Austria. Football was one great love; economics, and a university place, was the other.

His senior bow arrived at seventeen, in a Greek Cup tie at PAOK's stadium in Thessaloniki, with José Sá injured and the teenager handed the gloves.