Luis Robles retired from his 14-year professional goalkeeping career in 2020 and holds the record for most consecutive MLS starts — 183 for the Red Bulls in 2012-2018.

In May of 2024, Robles was named Technical Director of MLS Next, the youth league with more than 16,000 players on more than 750 teams. He had previously worked as the league’s senior manager of programming.

Robles serves as the lead for the academy directors and technical staff of MLS Next’s clubs. He also directs coaching education and referee expansion efforts.

SOCCER AMERICA: A unique part of your playing resume: You earned three caps, one each from Bob Bradley, Jurgen Klinsmann and Bruce Arena.

LUIS ROBLES: That’s right. If you needed a jury to decide whether or not I was at the international level, I struck out. That’s some good diversity of opinion there.

SA: To be fair, it was during the Tim Howard era and a team only needs one goalkeeper. … How did you become a goalkeeper in the first place?

LUIS ROBLES: My dad’s Puerto Rican, and I had a rich influence of basketball and baseball, but it was my best friend, Sean in fifth grade, who introduced me to soccer. He was really good at it. I wanted to hang out with him as much as possible, so I tried out for the team.

SA: And you made the team?

LUIS ROBLES: I was really bad. But the coach said, “Hey, we’ll give you a spot, but you’re only going to play goalie. You’re never coming out of that box.”

Which was fine with me, because it introduced me to the game of soccer. And standing in front of that big 8-by-24 goal having my friends shoot at me was a real thrill.

SA: You were born and raised in Arizona …

LUIS ROBLES: That’s right, Southeast Arizona. If you fly into Tucson International, and you drive south, just before you hit the Mexico border is the town that I grew up in, Sierra Vista.

SA: How’d you end up climbing the ladder to higher levels of goalkeeping?

LUIS ROBLES: I made an ODP U-14 regional team, back when ODP was really the pinnacle of youth development. Then I went on to the University of Portland.

SA: What drew you to Portland?

LUIS ROBLES: My main driver to that decision was Bill Irwin.

SA: Before becoming the Pilots’ head coach, Irwin spent a couple decades as a pro goalkeeper and Clive Charles’ Portland assistant when Kasey Keller played there …

LUIS ROBLES: A lot of schools at that time, even Top 25 programs, didn’t have budgets for full-time goalkeeper coaches. I felt for my own development, coming from Southeast Arizona and not really being exposed on a consistent basis to full-time goalkeeping instruction, I needed that.

If it wasn’t for Bill Irwin, there’s just no way I could have been the pro I was.

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SA: What led you to pursue the pro game in Germany?