Rubio Rubin knows a thing or two about pressure.
At just 17 years old, he made the decision to go to Europe to try to help support a hard-working family back home in Beaverton, Oregon. A year later, he made his U.S. National Team debut at Craven Cottage and looked well on his way to stardom. Expectations were high and he looked to be well on a path to reaching them when an injury sidelined him and changed the trajectory of his career.
While bouncing around from one league to another trying to rekindle that early success, he earned the confidence of two legends of the game in Diego Maradona and Landon Donovan who helped in redirecting a career that looked astray from the outside.