There is always an element of chance for players at the very top and Liverpool left-back Andy Robertson knows more than anybody.
Jurgen Klopp signed the Scotland international for £10m from Hull this summer but his career might have taken a very different path.
His big break to move into the first team set-up came one summer as a teenager while at Queen's Park—the only issue was he received the news during a lads holiday in Malia.
“I remember I was in Malia with the boys and I got a call from the first-team manager, which I thought was the best thing ever at this time," Robertson told the Reds' official website.
“I was a week into my holiday and he said, ‘I want you to come to pre-season tour’ - we went to Largs for four days. But I was supposed to go the day after we came back from Malia so I phoned my mum and dad straight away and was like, ‘I need a flight back, I can’t stay in Malia for 14 days and go to pre-season!’
“I remember being at the internet cafe trying to find flights and they were extortionate; my mum and dad couldn’t afford it, I couldn’t afford it.
“So I was just like, I’ll just have to calm it down. But obviously you don’t - it’s impossible!"
Robertson surprised himself though and has not looked back, making 34 first team appearances in the 2012/13 season and then securing a move to the Scottish Premiership with Dundee United in 2013.
"I came back and I was a wee bit worried about it," Robertson recalls. "[I was] thinking I could be way off the pace but I was flying!
“In the runs, I was ahead, and I was like, ‘this is brilliant!’ From that, I played against Airdrie in pre-season and played quite well and after that [manager] Gardner Speirs put his faith in me and said ‘it’s your jersey, you’re going to start the season and it’s up to you to keep it’.
“Luckily, I never missed a game.”