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?

LUIS ROBLES: I was influenced by my youth soccer coach, Wolfgang Weber, when I was playing for Tucson Soccer Academy.

He thought, “MLS is always going to be there. You’re young right now. You don’t have any kids, you’re not married. Just try it.”

I got drafted by D.C. United, but in the small window between when the draft and when the rookies needed to report … I flew to Germany and I attended a training session with the Kaiserslautern reserve team. After the session they invited me to train with the first team, and within a week I signed with them.

SA: You came to MLS after six years in Germany. But your move to the Red Bulls, who wanted to sign you in January of 2012, almost didn’t happen, and was delayed by seven months because of the allocation draft required for players capped by the U.S. national team. Did that experience contribute to your decision to serve (for five years) on the Executive Board of the players union, the MLSPA?

LUIS ROBLES: That allocation draft was created at a different time through a different CBA, and it pertained to players who were not me.

It was for if Tim Howard wanted to come back, Clint Dempsey wanted to come back, Michael Bradley … that mechanism was created for them to come back from Europe, not me. But I was stuck because I had that one cap in the 2009 Gold Cup.

When I look back at my professional career, especially my time in Major League Soccer, the moments and the work that I’m most proud of is the work I did with the MLS Players Association. One of the first things that I was able to influence is we got rid of the allocation draft, that mechanism that was really holding me back as a player to join Major League Soccer. That was something that we did away with in the 2015 CBA negotiation.

And then when I look back at 2020, which led me to retire — 2020 was a crazy year for everyone, and yet in that time, we were able to get the players back on the field to play. We were able to negotiate a CBA during a pandemic. And we were able to handle racial injustice in a way that was not only very effective for the player pool, but it gave a voice to the player pool, and that’s when the BPC (Black Players for Change) started.

I thought now would be a great time to retire, so that I could be in a different position to continue to influence the game and give back to the game that gave me so much.

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MLS Next launched in 2020 after U.S. Soccer pulled the plug on its Development Academy. Its 2024-25 season included 29 MLS academies, 122 elite academies (151 total clubs), 753 teams and more than 16,000 players across the USA and Canada.

SA: One of the changes in MLS Next after you became Technical Director was U-13 field size for the 2024-25 season, reducing the length of 86 to 96 yards. What have your observations been and what’s the feedback been?

LUIS ROBLES: The field-size changes have been a positive experience after one season of play. We were pleased with the change, and it’s been one of the highlights of the year. We’ve seen an increased number of touches for our players in those matches, and it has promoted technical development overall. It’s also a testament to the buy-in from coaches and directors.

They’ve supported the initiative and have provided useful feedback throughout the course of the season. It’s another example of MLS Next acting in the best interest of our players and clubs and we remain laser focused on player development. 

Due to the success of this initiative, we are implementing a few more changes for next season.

Globally, this age group is known for tinkering as it’s such a key stage due to growth and maturation. We have spoken with global reference points throughout South America and Europe to better understand how they are handling this age and it’s fascinating to learn the different approaches. It only validates our desire to find solutions to develop our players using various approaches. I look forward to the rollout of future initiatives in this age group for 2025-26.

SA: How does MLS Next handle officiating that may be different from traditional non-national leagues? Does it help provide a ladder to higher levels for ambitious refs?