On Thursday, UEFA held the draw for the group stages of the 2022-23 Champions League and we learned the fate of many of the top American players in the sport's most prestigious club competition. Included in the list were Gio Reyna and Dortmund, Weston McKennie and Juventus, Christian Pulisic and Chelsea and Sergino Dest and Barcelona.

Josh Cohen, however, is a name not many of the casual fans ever expected to be included on such a list. But for those who have been paying attention, Cohen's rise to the Champions League is far from a sudden fluke. It is part of a long process that has been building to this stage.

In 2019, Cohen, 30, felt his career was in a dead end. He had been bouncing around the lower tiers of American soccer. After graduating UC San Diego, he moved to the Burlingame Dragons of the USL PDL. Then on to the USL Championship's Orange County Blues, Phoenix Rising and the Sacramento Republic. By 2019, he was the USL Championship Goalkeeper of the Year but he wasn't getting interest from MLS teams.

"I kind of expected my path to be something like —I'm playing in USL, if I do really well the MLS opportunity will come," Cohen told Soccer America. "I'll get in contact with some teams and things will fall into place. That really just didn't happen."

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