The Unstoppable Keeper by Lutz Pfannenstiel

He has spent 101 days in a brutal Singapore jail after being accused of match fixing, survived after his heart stopped for three minutes during a match, had his shoes nailed to a bench by the Crazy Gang and stolen a penguin and kept it in his bath… he is German goalkeeper Lutz Pfannenstiel and this is his incredible story.

Described by Four Four Two magazine as the “craziest man in football”, Pfannenstiel is the only man to play pro football in all six FIFA confederations.

Having turned down Bayern Munich at the age of 19, he embarked on a globetrotting football adventure that took him from Malaysia to New Zealand – via Wimbledon, Nottingham Forest and Bradford Park Avenue – and from Albania to Brazil.

But the stats – 400 games for more than 25 clubs on six continents – don’t begin to tell the extraordinary story. He has been a techno DJ in Kuala Lumpur, he has lived in an igloo to raise awareness for global warming, he has been goalkeeping coach for both Cuba and Namibia (whose keeper was deaf) and persuaded Maradona to play a charity match in Antarctica!

A massive bestseller in his native Germany, The Unstoppable Keeper is quite simply the most extraordinary footballer autobiography you will ever read.

Lutz Pfannenstiel is the only footballer to play as a pro in every one of the six FIFA confederations. He played 400 matches for 25 clubs around the world, and was on the books at Wimbledon, Nottingham Forest and Huddersfield during the late 1990s. He has also worked as a coach in Armenia and Namibia, and as a goalkeeping coach for the Cuban and Namibian national teams. He is now Head of International Relations and Scouting for German Bundesliga club 1899 Hoffenheim as well as working as a regular television football presenter for BBC World and ZDF in Germany.

The Unstoppable Keeper was co-written by Christian Putsch (www.christianputsch.de), an award-winning Africa correspondent for German newspaper Die Welt and translated from German to English by Matthew Rockey