How Brian Schwake bet on himself to become No. 1 goalie for Nashville SC

Brian Schwake was 15 when he realized his dream of becoming a professional soccer player might be more than youthful fantasy. Schwake's goalkeeping coach, Neil Thompson, had arranged for Schwake and a few others to travel to England and train with Blackburn Rovers. During the session, a goalie coach for the EFL Championship club told the teenager from the Chicago suburbs that he could play at that level.

This was news to Schwake, who wasn't a regular starter for his club back home, Sockers FC. His coaches at the club's under-14 and under-15 levels told him the club's other goalkeepers were better than him. Schwake took the Blackburn coach's words as not only encouragement, but advice: you decide who you listen to.

"No one ever said that to me before," Schwake told the Tennessean. "At my club teams in America, it was like, 'Oh, you're just one of the goalies, you guys go do whatever you want. ' He was like, 'You can actually do this.

' At that moment, it flipped a switch in my head. " Schwake's confidence in himself blossomed, and since that day, he's tried to surround himself with people who share it. That's resulted in a winding path, one that young American goalies rarely take, but one that's led him to Nashville SC , where the 24-year-old looks the part of the team's No.