Soccer
Favorite athlete: Lionel Messi
Favorite team: Barcelona
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: Looking for a shin guard on the field when I had it on.
Music on mobile device: Lil Uzi
Future plans: Go to college and play soccer
Words to live by: “Work hard during practice because that is where it matters the most.”
One goal before turning 30: Play professional soccer
One thing people don’t know about me: I’m afraid of heights.
Switching over from head coach of the girls soccer team to the boys side at Bensalem High School, Lew Mladjen knew he was going to need some help.
Enter Robbie Montero, who knew more than anything that he had something to prove.
Mladjen’s inaugural year as the Owls boys’ soccer coach didn’t result in a championship. It didn’t even result in a playoff berth. However, his first year, which was also Montero’s last, both men got something out of the campaign as they both proved that they belonged.
“When I took over the team in late spring, I was looking for a few seniors to lean on,” Mladjen said. “I’m a teacher in the building, but I didn’t know any of them as players very well.
“Without even having to ask, Robbie stepped up. From day one in the summer, he was in the stadium working hard, getting himself in shape. His actions pulled the other guys along with him. He led not by his voice, but by example.”
Mladjen said the determined Montero, who received no league accolades or attention coming into the season, entered his senior season with a chip on his shoulder the size of a soccer field.
“He re-dedicated and re-committed himself to soccer,” Mladjen said. “He flew under the radar for three years and really caught a lot of teams by surprise. All he needed was a little push and encouragement.”
For his part, Montero knew he had to do things differently. He fell in love with the game the first time he kicked a soccer ball at age seven, and then suddenly, just like that, 10 years had flown by, and Montero found himself on the precipice of the end of his high school career that he felt he hadn’t gotten enough out of.
Montero played JV for the Owls as a ninth grader before moving up to the varsity as a sophomore. He saw more of the bench than the field for both his sophomore and junior seasons, but instead of blaming coaches or teammates, Montero looked straight into the mirror.
“It was my fault, because I didn’t even come close to putting in the work required, as I did this past summer,” Montero said. “Those couple of years weren’t good for me, and at the end of junior year, I realized that senior year was all I had left. It was my last season, so I was going to put in the work over the summer to stand out, be a good player and hopefully get noticed so I can play in college. It showed me that you’ve got to work hard for everything that you want in life. It paid off.”
Montero decided to just get back to basics and remind himself why he fell in love with the sport as a seven-year-old: because it was fun. It was so much fun that unlike many other kids his age, Montero knew soccer was the only sport he wanted to play.
When his mom first signed him up, he was so terrified and against the idea that he cried his eyes out on the way to his first game. But then, he discovered the thrill of scoring goals, and he kept coming back for more. Just as he did heading into his senior year, all Montero needed was a push in the right direction, which this time came from his mother.
“It all started when she signed me up for in-house soccer in Hulmeville,” Montero said. “I cried so much at first because I didn’t want to go, but then I scored a goal in that first game and my mom told me that after that I was always happy when it came to soccer. From then on, I was always out the door to get to the car before she could, even if it was just to go to practice. I just wanted to play more and more.”
And there were no other sports. Soccer was Montero’s first — and only — love.
“It was always just soccer,” he said. “I played other sports in gym class, but soccer was the one for me.”
Re-focused on his craft, Montero wanted to make his senior season special by holding himself completely accountable for how the year went. He was determined to train harder than ever before and leave it all out on the field. Montero’s teammates noticed, and he was voted a captain of the team, something he never envisioned while languishing on the bench a year earlier.
“It was amazing, to be honest, because I never thought it would be me,” Montero said. “It was an honor to captain this team and guide them through a season. It made me a better person, a better leader, and it just made me feel great about myself. I never thought I’d have that captain band around my arm, but I think I did a good job in guiding the team.”
A man of few words, Montero let his play do most of the talking. By the time the season was finished, he had tallied 11 goals and four assists in Bensalem’s 18 games, as the Owls finished with a 7-11 overall mark and a 5-7 league record in the notoriously difficult Suburban One League National Conference. Of the 11 losses, eight were by just one goal, suggesting the Owls were in pretty much every game they played.
Montero had a lot to do with that.
“He put us in a position to compete with everybody we played and gave us a chance to win almost every game,” Mladjen said. “He saw it as a challenge. He accepted it, he saw it and he went for it. We couldn’t have gotten to where we did this season without his hard work and production on the field. When we needed a goal, he was there.”
Mladjen said one game in particular stood out to him. The Owls were playing at Neshaminy, a team the seniors hadn’t beaten once in their entire four-year tenure.
“It was another one-goal game and he scored them both to give us a 2-1 win,” Mladjen said. “He just completely took over the game. If we don’t have him on the field, do we still win? I’m not sure, but what I do know is with him we were more dynamic, in that game and in every game.”
Added Montero: “It was the best feeling, because it was such a great team effort. That game is my favorite memory.”
Bensalem may have missed the playoffs, but Montero’s final season effectively served as a bridge to a promising future with the boys’ soccer program, one that has struggled in recent years. He made Mladjen’s first year on the job infinitely easier, and together the two made memories neither will soon forget.
Montero, who just celebrated his 18th birthday on October 15, hopes to play collegiate soccer. He’s not exactly sure what he wants to study yet, but he loves the idea of being an architect. He also said that he loves to write.
Montero also said he’d love to play professional soccer one day, perhaps for his favorite team, FC Barcelona, where he could follow in the footsteps of his all-time favorite player, Lionel Messi. He knows the odds are against him, but they were heading into his senior season, too. Look how that turned out once he zeroed in on his goals.
“If Robbie wants to play college soccer, he can play,” Mladjen said. “Whether it’s Division I or Division III, he has the skill and drive to do that. He’s driven by a desire to prove it to himself as well. He saw this year that if he put in the work, he could be successful at this. I don’t know if he had it in his mind that he could play in college, but now he can see it. His hard work paid off. And he knows he can apply that to anything now if he puts in the work. Whatever is in front of him is just another obstacle to overcome. Whatever he puts his mind toward he will be successful, without question.”
In the end, Montero took his time with the Bensalem soccer team as one giant life lesson. He discovered the right way to do things, and once he was committed to his craft, there was no stopping him.
“Soccer clearly made me a better person,” he said. “It gave me something to do, gave me structure. It changed my whole mindset, the way I look at things. Now, as I approach college and being out in the real world, I know I can put any challenge I face into soccer terms. All you have to do is work hard in everything you do. If you do, it’s going to pay off.”
