"Oh, the Places You'll Go" [Part 1]

“Oh, the Places You’ll Go!”-  Zac Lubin has the famous Dr. Seuss line tattooed on his forearm, and it's no more of a fitting tattoo for someone like him. The 31-year-old Phoenix Rising goalkeeper has traveled the world in pursuit of his dream ever since he was a child. 

From taking his first steps on a soccer pitch in Australia to painting houses in Sweden to earn a living as a pro soccer player, his career has taken him to the most unlikely places and put him in the most unusual of circumstances. He’s been called up as an emergency transfer for a Cascadia Cup matchup, he’s practiced free-kicks with Didier Drogba for an entire year, won USL trophies, and he’s couch-surfed his way across Europe. 

“Honestly, one of the coolest parts is just the amount of people and relationships you build along the way,” Lubin said. “The amount of people that know each other and try to help out is incredible -- the soccer world ends up being very small.”

Lubin’s life of travel began when he was just six weeks old. His parents -- both avid skiers -- decided to move from Colorado to Brisbane, Australia, and it’s there where Lubin fell in love with soccer. 

“If I hadn't started playing soccer in Australia, I honestly don't think I would have been a soccer player at all,” said Lubin. 

Lubin’s older sister, Sara,  picked up the sport in Australia, and Lubin quickly followed, kicking a ball on the sideline and trying to keep up with her as much as he could. While Lubin says he doesn’t remember much from life in Australia, he does remember how shocking it was to move back to the United States.

“When we moved back to the States, we went to Montana, which is a very rural state,” Lubin said. “Soccer is not popular in Montana. If I had just grown up in Montana, it just wouldn’t have been the same.”

After moving to Montana, Lubin tried nearly every sport that was available. Baseball, basketball, hockey, and everything in between. None were able to compete with soccer.

“I didn't enjoy those sports like I did soccer,” Lubin said. “I loved soccer for being free and running around.” 

Being free and able to run around as a kid for Lubin specifically meant playing in a lot of grass and mud, which introduced him to one position and one position only - goalkeeper.

“As far back as I can remember, I was playing goalie,” Lubin said.

He fell in love with the position but also fell in love with soccer as a whole. All he wanted to do was play, but there were not many outlets to play in Montana. Not everyone in Montana was as sold on soccer as he was as well.  

“Montana has brutal winters, and there is not much soccer because we don't have any indoor turf facilities for soccer,” Lubin said. “Then there's three feet of snow on the ground all winter long, for months. So all the kids in the winter aren't trying to play soccer and get better. They’re off skiing or doing something else.”

It was hard for Lubin to become fully invested in soccer living in Montana. For several months of the year, he would play hockey instead of soccer. The 2002 FIFA World Cup changed everything for Lubin, though. 

“My uncle got me a soccer ball signed by Kasey Keller,” Lubin said. “Keller was his neighbor, and he knew I was a big soccer fan, so he walked over and got him to sign the ball from me for Christmas. Then I watched the 2002 World Cup, with  Keller and Brad Friedel. They're making penalty stops, and you get to the quarterfinals, and the goalkeeper stole the show. That’s when I knew I wanted to be a professional soccer player. It was that moment. I just knew I wanted to be a pro goalkeeper.”

Lubin had his sights set for the professional ranks, but he was still in Montana. Making it to the pros would be nearly impossible.

“I was naive,” Lubin said. “We didn’t have the academy coaches and system like the kids do today. I was still just playing youth soccer. We were playing competitively, we’d travel for tournaments and go to places like San Diego and Vegas and Seattle, and we'd get wrecked. But I was one of the best in Montana, so I thought I was really good. A big fish in a very small pond. I didn't realize the level that's out there and what it requires.”

Despite not having access to academy coaches, the coaches he did have made sure Lubin had a shot at playing college soccer. A former high school coach and teacher of Lubin’s helped him create a list of schools he was interested in attending and let him know what grades he’d need to be able to get in.

But still, Lubin did not receive a single scholarship offer. He ended up enrolling at Division II Saint Martin’s University in 2007 and made the team after trying out as a walk-on. 

During the team’s second day of pre-season camp, Lubin could barely contain himself. Keller had shown up to camp.

“I had the biggest shit-eating grin on my face,” Lubin said. “I just couldn’t believe we were going to train with him. I can’t even remember what we talked about when we met, but getting to see him on the field and the intensity he played with was incredible. He’d be kicking the goalposts and yelling every time a ball went past him. It was insane.”

Both of Lubin’s college coaches at the time, Tom Dutra and Rob Walker, had trained Keller when he was younger, so Lubin knew if he listened, he could try to get to the same level as his hero.

“When they told me to jump, I jumped,” Lubin said. “I did everything they said, and that's when the process started because before then, I couldn't kick a ball outside of the 18-yard box in the air with my left foot. I couldn't even pass with my left foot.”

During that season, Lubin worked every week on polishing a different aspect of his game. Some weeks it was 500 goal-kicks with one foot. The next would be 500 goal-kicks with the other foot. 

“I would put ten balls down and chase them all down to the other side of the field,” Lubin said. “The thing was, I had two guys with a roadmap to the pros.”

Lubin enjoyed successful seasons during his early years in college, but after his senior season at Saint Martin, he considered hanging up his gloves once and for all. 

“I didn't even know if I wanted to play anymore,” Lubin said. “I was kind of done. I didn't want to touch a soccer ball. I thought I wanted to go to law school. But I spoke with some lawyers, and I learned the life of a lawyer kind of sucks.”

“They told me if I wasn’t coming out of an Ivy League, I was gonna be in debt working 60-to-80 hours a week just being a clerk not doing anything I wanted to do. No weekends. Kiss your life goodbye, basically. I was like, ‘Nah, no way.’ I told myself, ‘You don’t need tons of money. That’s not really what makes you happy in life.’”

Lubin decided to return after taking a few months off, and in the spring of his senior year, he signed with Kitsap Pumas in the Premier Development League, which is now USL League Two. 

His professional dream had begun to take shape, but making it to the next level was just as hard as getting out of Montana.

“It was tough,” Lubin said. “I was leaving my house at 6:00 AM, down in Olympia to drive an hour-and-a-half for practice and then come back. But we won the PDL national championship that year in 2011, and that was a huge thing for my career because it gave me a little taste of being proud and making a little bit of money.”

Despite having success on the field, life outside the pitch was not glamorous. During his time at Kitsap, Lubin had four other day jobs. 

He returned to Saint Martin’s as a goalkeeper coach and managed the recreation center at the university, as well as running his own goalkeeper academy and working part-time at a local GNC. For two years, Lubin worked from 5:30 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. just to fit all his jobs, training sessions, and matches in as well. 

At the end of 2012, Lubin decided to take a leap of faith, and he saved up enough money to go to an AX Soccer Tours combine in San Diego.

“I paid a couple of hundred bucks to go down,” Lubin said. “I had to pay for my flight and my hotel for three days just to play and try and showcase myself in front of coaches. On day one, I got kicked in the hand, and I broke it.”

Despite the broken hand -- and being a few hundred dollars down -- the trip to the combine was not a complete waste. While there, he heard about a new venture by coach Joe Funicello, who was trying to start a scouting program of his own called SoccerViza. 

The idea behind the program was for players to sign up, pair them with a team in Europe, and have them travel with the team across Europe. The first SoccerViza combine was scheduled for late March in Iceland, and Lubin knew he couldn’t miss it.

“I knew I was gonna be out of my pins beginning of February, so I rehabbed hard and was back to catching balls by early March,” Lubin said.” At that point, I was like, ‘Fuck it, I'm gonna go for it.’”

A week before the combine was set to begin, a licensing problem forced the Icelandic FA to cancel the SoccerViza combine. 

“I called up [Funicello] immediately and was like ‘Dude, whatever I have to do, I'll do it.’” Lubin said.

Funicello eventually told Lubin he could stay with him in Iceland and train with him at Þór Akureyri, which plays in 1. deild karla, the second-highest professional league in Iceland. 

Funicello invited his coaching contacts out to watch Lubin in training. 

Lubin received a few offers from teams in Iceland but failed to strike a deal with any of them. Still, his experience there taught him more than what he needed to know about breaking into the professional ranks.  

“I got to experience some really cool stuff,” Lubin said. “I kinda went on a whim, and I caught the Northern Lights, which was amazing. But that trip, and having [Funicello] as a mentor, put me on the path of emailing people, reaching out, sending my resume, and that’s something that’s helped me a lot since then.”

After returning to the U.S., Lubin put those new skills to the tests, and he was able to get a spot in pre-season with the Seattle Sounders. 

“I was training with the Sounders first team in the mornings and with the U-23s in the afternoon,” Lubin said. “I wasn't making any money, so I’d go there, have breakfast, train, and have lunch at the facilities. I’d always be the last one at lunch just to pack leftovers for dinner, but then I'd have to go down and train with the Sounders U-23s in the afternoon.”

He had a friend who lived right next to the Sounders’ practice facility and put him up for that summer, so he had somewhere to stay and eat. 

“But I was trying to take as much food as I could from the Sounders dining hall!” Lubin said. 

Even though his time with the Sounders was a “great experience,” it was still three years of unpaid play.

In 2014, Lubin went back to the AX Soccer Tours combine, and this time a scout from Swedish side IFK Lulea got in touch with him and asked him to go to Sweden for a trial. The decision was simple. 

“I took all my money out of my savings, bought a one-way ticket, packed my bag, put everything from my apartment into storage, and went,” Lubin said.

Fortunately, the trial went well, and Lubin ended up signing his first-ever full-time professional contract. 

“After so many years of grinding and not being in the most ideal of situations, it seriously felt so good to finally have that opportunity to play full-time pro soccer,” Lubin said. “That's all I had to focus on. Housing was taken care of, meals, everything. I was used to running around doing coaching sessions and workouts and this and that, but finally getting to just play and not worry about anything else was incredible.”

The experience of getting to travel and live in another country was life-changing for Lubin.

From making friendships through hand gestures to meeting up-and-coming players from all over the world, Lubin learned about the camaraderie that comes from chasing a common dream in a foreign country.  

“It was one of the most amazing years of my life,” Lubin said. “Going from Montana to then being out and experiencing so many different cultures and people was incredible. Some of the friendships I made there still mean a lot to me, and the things I learned from different people from Africa, Russia, and everywhere were incredible.”

Lubin made great strides on the pitch, too, as he played in 40 professional matches that year, which helped him develop his game awareness, reflexes, and playing with his feet. 

During his second year with IFK Lulea, Lubin made the hard decision to move on from the club, looking to take the next step in his pro career. His back-packing adventures were only just getting started. After going to another AX Soccer Tours Combine, a few teams in Ireland were interested in signing Lubin. 

“I bought a one-way ticket to Ireland,” Lubin said. “I didn't know how long I was gonna be there. I had a backpack for the year, like wanting to do a full tour, but I stayed in Ireland and did really well on tour with Cork City FC. It was one of the toughest environments I've ever been in, but I loved it. It’s January, it's raining, and it's freezing cold. You're in the mud and the grass, and everyone's got English accents. There were some incredible players who had played in the Premier League that were there.”

“But I was there for a month, and in the end, they just told me they couldn’t sign me.”

Despite being unable to secure a contract overseas, Lubin returned to the U.S. and signed for FC Tulsa in the United Soccer League. It was the club’s first year in the league, and with an average attendance of about 5,000 fans, it was the first time that Lubin experienced a level of stardom. 

He stayed in the USL the following year but moved to newcomers Swope Park Rangers, and although he was not a starter on that team, the club managed to reach the USL Cup Final. The Rangers would ultimately fall to the Red Bulls II in the championship game, but it was an overall positive season for Lubin. 

After those two seasons in USL, Lubin would enter the most action-packed years of his life and professional career. 

“That offseason in 2017, I was going through it, just trying to get trials, trying to get teams, but I couldn't get anything,” Lubin said. “Then it was February, and my agent at the time still hadn’t found anything for me. That’s when I got a call from an agent in Sweden.”

Little did Lubin know that that one phone call would change the trajectory of his pro career. Painting houses, Drogba, and Cascadia Cup all because of a single call. 

[Click here to read part 2]

Words by Pablo Bayona Sapag

Photography by Ashley Orellana.