Luis Robles was just going to hang around for a couple of months. Stay in shape, cash his paychecks, wait for a team to claim him. In all likelihood, nobody would. And that was O.K. His wife would have the baby — covered by Major League Soccer’s health insurance — and that would be it. Robles would walk away from soccer for good. He was fine with that. Even had a job lined up.

Instead, on Sunday, Robles will start in goal for the Red Bulls when they open the M.L.S. playoffs against D.C. United. This is what he does, what Robles has done 106 times in a row now — six games shy of Kevin Hartman’s league record of starting and finishing 112 straight regular-season games. Midfielder Chris Klein once started 118 in a row — the overall league record for consecutive games — although, unlike Robles and Hartman, he did not complete them all. But that record is now within view for Robles, too.

If it is strange for Robles, 31, to be nearing either milestone, it is because the odds of his becoming the league’s ironman were prohibitively long. He was a marginal and undersize prospect coming out of the University of Portland, drafted 50th over all by D.C. United in 2007. When M.L.S. offered him an $11,700 developmental contract, he declined and decided to try his luck in Germany instead.

His agent put him up in the barn of an old country house, where Robles took up residence in the spartan washroom. In fits of boredom, he would walk the sheep on the property, luring them around the grounds with Cheerios. But while he worked as an amateur shepherd, he also was becoming a professional goalkeeper.