Had you taken a view, based on his first two genuinely huge games for Atletico Madrid, it's feasible that you might not have backed Thibaut Courtois to handle the pressure he faces over the next week: two Champions League semifinal matches for a club that has gone 40 years without reaching the final, and against the club which to which he actually belongs.
Truthfully, it's a pretty horrible situation.
Anyone who cares for him, by which I mean friends and family, will have their hearts in their mouths, just praying, with every fibre, that he doesn't make a big mistake.
But, given that columns like this allow the benefit of time travel, we go back to his beginnings with Atletico -- the club for whom he has become third in importance only behind the Diegos: Simeone and Costa.
Courtois had just turned 19 when he joined los Colchoneros on loan from Chelsea in July 2011, and exactly two months later, it was Camp Nou time.
To that point, this precocious kid who'd made his debut for Genk aged 16 had only conceded once in six games for Atletico.
Things looked good.
Ninety minutes after Courtois began the biggest match of his life, Lionel Messi had scored a hat trick and Barca had won 5-0. It was a brutal, whirlwind destruction.
Two months later, along came his first Madrid derby -- at the Bernabeu.
The young Belgian escaped the match without conceding a goal, principally because he was sent off in conceding a penalty (against Karim Benzema) with Atleti leading 1-0. Jose Mourinho's Madrid went on to win 4-1.
The two biggest tests of his career brought two thumping defeats and a red card.
Inauspicious.
But even then it was a case of “Don't judge a book by the cover.”
Champions League semifinal coverage:
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- Delaney: Manager matchups
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Deep inside the cavernous Camp Nou, there's a tunnel that connects the pitch; the dressing rooms; the chapel, which is halfway up the stairs from the playing surface; and the parking space for the away team's bus.
Walking away from that first defeat, Courtois bumped into the slim, saturnine coach of the-then reigning Spanish and European champions; someone who knew that the scoreline didn't reflect the quality of the newbie's work that night.
"I was walking through the catacombs in the stadium and there was a guy coming towards me,” recalled Courtois later.
“I didn’t recognise him until he spoke to me. It was Pep Guardiola and he said ‘You're playing very well. Keep it up.'
"Strangely, despite the 5-0 result, that day was like a dream come true for me. “Playing there is of the things I used to fantasize about as a kid.
"Messi also congratulated me after the match. His three goals were absolutely unstoppable but I had managed to make a couple of saves I was proud of. The thing with Messi is that he looks like he's doing absolutely nothing whilst the rest of the team circulate the ball around. Then, all of a sudden, he burst into action and deals the fatal blow. It's the way you learn at my age."
Sage, sage words for a 19-year-old kid. When he reached the dressing room that August night two and a half years ago his teammates teased him: “Welcome to Spain!”
It was a phrase to tell him: this is how it always is when we play the “big boys.” Words said jokingly, but words of resignation nonetheless.
Now, all of that has changed. All of it.
Messi hasn't scored in his last six games against Courtois, and Atletico not only lead La Liga -- threatening to take Barca's title -- but knocked the Catalan team out of the Champions League at the quarterfinal stage.
As for Madrid, Courtois was man of the match in May when Atletico saw Jose Mourinho out of Spain with a Copa del Rey final win at the Bernabeu, and their 1-0 win at the same stadium earlier this season accounts for the fact that even should Los Blancos win their game in hand, Courtois and co will still have a three-point gap on their city rivals.
The obvious point to focus on given his extraordinary trajectory, not only with Atletico but as a professional in general, is that Courtois is a very potent mix of talent, physique and temperament.
What that hides, slightly, is the way that luck, good fortune and coincidence (call it what you will) have shone on him.
As a kid at Genk he was a left-back and, by his own admission, not necessarily one destined for a professional career.
One day the team was short of a keeper and Courtois -- who had played volleyball throughout his childhood and who comes from a family in which his parents and siblings played or play at the highest national level -- volunteered to help out.
After that match, he was given a subtle hint by his coach that perhaps his future lay more firmly between the sticks and, credit to him, he readily accepted.
Aged 11, he had considered giving up football altogether so as to concentrate on volleyball and to see whether he could earn his living that way.
Undoubtedly the change from full-back to keeper helped catch his enthusiasm and settle his doubts.
Just as well.
So by the time he was a promising 16-year-old it was a hindrance that the first team had three keepers in the squad while Courtois and another player of the same age and profile fought it out to be first choice for the reserve team.
But in mid-season, December 2008, two of the first-team keepers chose to leave and the young men were promoted.
Genk (who begin to seem a bit obsessed with goalies at this stage), though, then signed Sem Franssen to back up Davino Verhulst.
But when the latter was suspended ahead of a big game against Ghent for a Europa League place, Franssen suddenly injured himself and Courtois was handed his big chance.
He was in the first team aged 16 and already within just over two years of signing for Chelsea.
When that happened, the Stamford Bridge club just beat Atletico to the capture of this 6-feet-6-inch tall athlete. The choice was easy -- better money and more trophy prospects (then at least) -- but Atleti had pushed hard.
So when Chelsea explained to him that there was no room at the inn and they intended to loan him back to Genk to continue his education he insisted, firmly, that he wanted to go to Atletico instead.
Towering height, towering ambition; hence the reason that there's never been any doubt in my mind that Courtois would absolutely desire to play in this tie when some, who pertained to Chelsea, would happily have made public noises about him being “upset” at not being allowed to play while actually being quite happily hidden from the clamour and the pressure.
Not this guy.
All of us know that sport can be cruel. Courtois has made the odd mistake this season and who knows, perhaps it's his “turn” again in one of these two historic matches against his paymasters.
But one thing you can bet your life on: whether he's on form or not, whether Chelsea dominate or not, whether or not Simeone's men get stage fright, Thibaut Courtois will use every fibre in his body and every ounce of his formidable talent to make sure that it's Atletico who are headed to Lisbon in May. Not the club that owns him.
Saint Iker vs. The Ogre
Real Madrid's away record in Germany is appalling. For a club of its history and stature, the record is a joke.
In 27 previous visits, Madrid have won just twice, and that second victory came this season against a flaccid Schalke 04.
Against the 11 Teutonic rivals Madrid have faced home and away in UEFA competition, they have avoided defeat in the away leg twice.
Then there's Bayern. Little wonder that Oliver Kahn, victorious in umpteen football wars against Los Blancos, calls Bayern Munich "Real Madrid's 'other' bete noire -- their ogre."
Of the five Champions League/European Cup semifinals the teams have contested, the Bavarians have won four. In 10 visits to Munich, Madrid have claimed just one draw and have conceded 24 goals. Again, for the nine-time European champions, these are statistics to bring shame.
The key stat, however, is that whenever Madrid have managed to overcome their bete noire, eliminating them in 1988, 2000, 2002 and 2004, Madrid have managed to keep the Germans from scoring in the Bernabeu.
As much as an actual win on Wednesday is important, it's going to be vital that it is an Iker Casillas night.
”San Iker, Saint Iker,” they call him (those apart from the moronic few who turned against him when Jose Mourinho tried to denigrate this legendary keeper).
It's because he possesses something beyond simple good housekeeping as a goalkeeper; he also has some kind of preternatural ability to produce the most unbelievable save, the reaction or fingertip of which even he probably didn't think himself capable in order to avert a goal in the most extreme moment of tension or danger.
Take, for example, his remarkable one-on-one save against Bayern's Arjen Robben in the final of the last World Cup.
San Iker has somehow thrived this season against a backdrop of becoming a father for the first time at a moment when Madrid only use him for cup games in the Copa del Rey (which they won!) and the Champions League.
No matter the damage that Mourinho's aggressive attitude towards him was meant to inflict -- this terrific, proud, honest competitor has risen above it.
Pep Guardiola used to turn out teams that knew how to score past Casillas and win at the Bernabeu. Rest assured he'll calculate the odds and ask his players to shoot from distance.
One-on-one Iker produces the most cat-like reactions but, from distance, he's only very good. More, Guardiola will estimate that if a keeper has played less football than normal, if there's a chance of minute errors creeping in, then judging the flight of a ball from distance might just cause him to spill one back out -- or to be beaten.
Madrid, right on form, are capable of defeating Bayern Munich, but even if the German champions arrive in a state that Guardiola calls "not our best moment," the feeling is that they are less prone to errors and that they have acquired the “winning habit” over the past couple of pretty glorious seasons.
The feeling remains that whatever else Madrid produce on Wednesday evening they'll need one of Iker's great nights to prevent Bayern from getting even a single away goal. Or they risk saying goodbye to La Decima and an alluring trip to Lisbon next month.