"Oh, the Places You'll Go" [Part 2]

[Click here to read part 1]

That phone call came at a desperate time. Feeling nervous about not having a club to sign for, Lubin received a tempting offer from an agent in Sweden.

“I don't even know why I was nervous,” Lubin said. “I think that was probably the one mistake I think I've really made. But I was just like, ‘Shit, I'm not gonna get signed.’ And it wasn't even the beginning of February, so USL teams hadn’t even started their pre-seasons.”

The phone call was from an agent Lubin had met during his first stint in Sweden, and he told Lubin that Vasteras SK Football were looking for a goalkeeper and were eager to sign him.

In a heartbeat, Lubin decided to fly out to Sweden.

“I flew out to Tucson, landed, got all my equipment, packed up,” Lubin said. “I was living like a Gypsy at the time, so I didn’t have much and just went to Sweden again.”

This second time in Sweden would be vastly different from the first, and little could have prepared Lubin for what he was about to face.

“Before I left, the agent told me, ‘We'll be in touch when you land, and there'll be someone from the club there to pick you up,’” Lubin said. “So I landed, got my bag, and I texted this guy a couple of times, tried to call him, and nothing. No answer.”

“He's not answering, and there's no one there. The airport had almost cleared out, and I’m just there like, ‘What the fuck? I just had a one-way ticket. Like come on, man, are you kidding me?”

Finally, the agent reached out to Lubin and told him he’d have to take a bus to a house where he could stay -- an hour away. Once again, the agent told Lubin that there would be someone waiting for him at the stop.

But no one was there waiting for him.

Lubin called him yet again, and this time the agent said that no one would be coming to get him, but he managed to get Lubin a hotel room that he’d have to walk to.

In the middle of the Swedish winter, the walk felt like an eternity, and when Lubin arrived at the hotel, he found that the room wasn’t paid for. Worst of all, the next day, Lubin found out that the agent hadn’t really been in contact with the coach from Vasteras. The coach wasn’t even in the country.

“I was able to track down the coach’s phone number, and I called him, and he's like, ‘No, this dude had brought you up to me a couple of weeks ago, but that's it,’” Lubin said. “The coach then told me he had a starting goalkeeper he was happy with but that they still might need a keeper, so he said I could stay and train.”

During his trial at Vasteras, Lubin slept on a teammate’s couch, jet-lagged and cold. The club did not sign him at the end of the trial. He was now stuck in Sweden, without a club.

“I decided to stay, and I'm at that point just calling everybody, I'm calling agents and scouts,” Lubin said.

He was able to find a couple of other trials in Sweden, and one day in the sauna after one of his trials, he heard that Ljungskile SK, who played in Sweden’s third division, were actively looking for goalkeepers.

“I had one of my old teammates get in contact with the coach for me, and they said they didn’t have a ton of money, but that they did need a goalkeeper and to just come out because they had a place for me,” Lubin said.

“So I get there, and there’s a snowstorm. It's pitch black. Get off the train, and it's a blizzard, but at least the van is there for me. We drove up through this tiny, tiny town, and you couldn’t really see anything except for a big stadium on top of a hill. They had a small apartment for me next to the stadium, and there was a huge snowbank up against the door. Anyways, somehow I got in, slept, and went to training the next day.”

After a short trial, the team offered Lubin a contract, but they had no money to pay him. With regulations in Sweden stipulating that international players had to be paid to be eligible to play, Lubin and the team were in a difficult situation. Fortunately, they found a solution thanks to a sponsor.

“One of our sponsors reached out saying, ‘If you work for us, we can pay the team to pay you,’” Lubin said.

Lubin’s job? Painting houses.

“It was four days a week from 7 a.m. until 2 p.m.,” Lubin said. “At 3 p.m. I had training with the team. It was terrible. Painting and then off to training.”

Despite the struggles with his painting job off the field, Lubin and the team were able to have a strong start to the season. They were even fighting for promotion midway through the year. After six months at the club, Lubin no longer had to paint houses to earn a salary, but the team was unable to reach promotion in the second half of the season.

After an arduous year in Sweden, Lubin was ready to return to the United States.

“I was away from my family again at this point,” Lubin said. “The first time, it was a lot of fun because I was 24. I was on an adventure, but this time out, I was 28. I was missing my girlfriend Brenna, missing my family, and this was not quite it for me.”

“At this point, I was ready to just be done. Retire and just be back in the U.S. because after what I went through that year, I knew that I could retire with zero regrets about my career. I literally did everything I possibly could to continue it. I jumped, and I did everything I thought I was ever going to have to do. And then I played soccer for free. I had four years of being a veteran and making money, and then I played soccer for free to keep the dream alive.”

Upon returning to the U.S. and staying with Brenna in Chicago, Lubin made a final push to continue his pro soccer career. He built a spreadsheet with all the contacts he had -- players, coaches, GMs, agents, etc. From there, he started calling and contacting them to try and get a trial or a contract with a team.

Lubin flew out to Vegas to train with the Las Vegas Lights, and although the team offered him a contract, the deal eventually fell through. Lubin returned to Chicago to see Brenna after being away for a few weeks, and on his first day back to Chicago, he got a call from Phoenix Rising FC.

“I had taken out Brenna to a nice ramen spot,” Lubin said. “I had just gotten back after being out in Vegas, and I sat on the phone with the Rising for 45 minutes. I just went outside to take the phone call really quickly, and it ended up being a long one, but this is what I have to do.”

After spending that offseason together, Brenna knew how hectic Lubin’s schedule could get. The next morning, Lubin was on a plane to Phoenix for an open trial. A few days later, the club offered him a contract, and the deal was done.

In less than a couple of weeks, Lubin went from nearly retiring to sharing a locker room with Didier Drogba.

“He’s the most humble dude,” Lubin said. “I met him at the team meeting because he pulled up at the same time as me. He introduced himself before I could even say anything -- I was a bit star-struck, and I didn’t know what to do. Before I even said anything, he’s like ‘Hey, I’m Didier Drogba, nice to meet you.’”

Lubin’s first season in Phoenix in 2018 was a season to remember, especially because of all the lessons learned from the famed Ivorian striker.

“I couldn't believe it, like the whole year, the whole process,” Lubin said. “He could have been an asshole. He could have been yelling at us to be better, to play in the right way, because that's the standard he’s used to. But he was just so helpful, and he’d just coach us and give us advice.”

Perhaps more than anyone else on the team, Lubin got a chance to experience Drogba’s magic first-hand.

“You see him hit those banger free-kicks on TV, and it’s all from practice,” Lubin said. “He would be the last one on the field with like two bags of balls, and he would just spread them out outside the box. Since I wasn’t the starter back then, I would just stand in goal, and he would just smash these 40-yard knuckleballs for 30 minutes every day. I’d just have to stay after training with him, and I swear my hands would be just completely shattered by the end.”

Thanks to Drogba’s leadership and the team’s talented squad, the Rising were able to make the USL Championship. Even though the team didn’t take home the trophy, Lubin was finally able to live out his dream in the U.S. and gained valuable experiences along the way.

Midway through that season, Lubin was called up to a Timbers-Sounders match as an emergency backup goalkeeper.

Stefan Frei had suffered a concussion, and the rest of the Sounders’ goalkeepers were also injured. The Sounders called up Phoenix Rising and asked for Lubin to go up to Seattle on Saturday morning after his Friday night match.

“They asked me if I was cool with that, and I was like, ‘Fuck yeah, I’m cool,’” Lubin said.

The Rising played on Friday night, won, and the next morning, Lubin was on his way to Seattle. The game was set for a one p.m. kickoff, and Lubin’s flight got in at 10 a.m.

“I immediately went to the rental car place, got the car, changed into my suit in the bathroom at the rental car facility, and went straight to the stadium,” Lubin said. “It was so embarrassing too. I got there, and I was pretty much a mess. I ended up sweating through my button-up, and people were asking me if I was okay, but I’d only had a coffee, some Red Bull, and half a bagel.”

Despite the hectic trip to make it on time for kickoff, the whole experience was unforgettable for Lubin.

“I felt like I was really good in warmups making some saves against these top guys,” Lubin said. “Then to be on the field walking out in front of 65,000 fans was incredible. It's loud. Two of the biggest fanbases meeting for one match. They had this special Cascadia Cup jersey, which was nice, and I got to take it home. Even if I didn’t play, it was pretty special to experience that for sure.”

While 2018 was a memorable year for Lubin in terms of getting to play alongside Drogba and being part of a Cascadia Cup fixture, 2019 was -- in his eyes -- the best year of his career. He had 13 clean sheets in 29 games that season, and he also helped Phoenix to a record 20 straight wins during the regular season. Despite their incredible success in the regular season, the Rising were unable to reach the USL Championship Final as they had done the year prior.

In 2020, though, despite the challenges brought on by the pandemic, Lubin had one of the most important years of his life and his career. He was able to guide the Rising to a USL Western Conference title on the back of incredible playoff performances. In the Conference Semifinal and Conference Final, Lubin made key penalty shootout saves to help his team secure victory.

The final was canceled due to COVID-19, and even though Lubin says he would have much rather played the final and lost than not played it all, Lubin and the Rising’s achievements in 2020 are still special.

Off the field, the last 12 months have also been huge for Lubin. He moved in with Brenna in Phoenix, and at the beginning of this year, he proposed, and she said yes.

“It’s the most nervous I've ever been,” Lubin said. “PKs, shootouts, whatever, I’ve never been that nervous. I forgot everything I was gonna say, but I was like, ‘Okay, I just need to make sure I get the question right.’”

Lubin seems to be at a point where the destination is just as good as the entire journey. He’s a USL Champion, he’s engaged to his longtime partner, and he seems to be ready to settle down in Arizona -- at least for a bit. Knowing Lubin, though, there are new frontiers he will surely set out to explore.

“I’ve enjoyed every moment just because my career is like a bonus -- I'm in extra time,” Lubin said. “I'm a kid from Montana who wasn't supposed to be here at all. But I can’t wait for what’s next.”

Words by Pablo Bayona Sapag

Photography by Ashley Orellana