FabroRap coming up big during Winthrop men’s soccer run to College Cup

The first rap that Winthrop senior soccer goalkeeper Fabian Broich wrote was actually a poem for a girl who had conquered his heart.

A friend saw the poem and suggested they record it as a song on his laptop. This was a perfect plan for Broich, a bashful teenager living in Rommerskirchen, Germany. He recorded the song for his love interest’s birthday, thus spawning an interest in hip-hop that long outlasted the girl.

When Winthrop takes the field Thursday night against Elon in the first round of the College Cup - the NCAA men’s soccer tournament - Broich will stand between the posts, tasked with keeping the Phoenix at bay. Broich, a 6-foot-3 senior, has kept four straight clean sheets and saved two penalties during the Eagles’ 3-1 shootout win over High Point in Sunday’s Big South championship.

He’s still bashful off the field, but on it he’s all shouting instructions and flapping his arms during shootouts to distract penalty takers. Anything to make sure his American adventure that began four years ago ends positively.

“We’ve won so many games lately and we are really confident,” said Broich. “We don’t have just two leaders, just the captains. We have so many seniors and we are from all over the world and we all have different aspects that bring us to this point. We never give up, and we can’t wait for tomorrow.”

Broich’s strong finish to the season has mirrored his team’s. The Eagles started the 2015 campaign beset by injuries and leaking goals, and Broich figures that a team with nine seniors put too much pressure on itself. Eventually the injuries subsided and Rich Posipanko’s team hit a groove, winning six matches in a row at one point. Centerbacks Jordi Lluch and Kyle Kennedy have formed a rock-solid pairing in front of the keeper.

“Now we have a harmony and we help each other out,” said Broich. “We’ve been really solid.”

The Eagles swept through the first two rounds of the Big South tournament, brushing aside UNC Asheville and Campbell by a combined seven goals. High Point was much stiffer competition in the final, and after regulation and two overtimes the match went to a shootout.

A bitter memory bubbled up for the 25-year old Broich. The previous year, when Winthrop met Radford in the semifinals of the Big South tournament, it was predetermined before the match that fellow keeper Guilherme Avilar would enter the game in Broich’s place if the game went to penalties. And it did.

And Winthrop lost.

The High Point shootout offered Broich a chance at vindication, one he seized.

Winthrop found some luck when High Point’s Ebe Kudolo pinged his spot kick off the crossbar, but Eagle midfielder Magnus Thorsson’s penalty was saved to leave the Panthers in pole position. Broich lunged to his right to parry away Johnny Fenwick’s low strike and take the advantage back from High Point.

After Winthrop’s James Skonicki tucked his kick away in the corner, Broich got down to his left to turn away Avery Ryan’s shot, setting up Max Hasenstab for the final attempt. Hasenstab slid the winning penalty into the net, and Broich went crazy.

“I was really speechless. I was just running, I had nothing going on in my mind,” he said. “It was just emotions and you’re going crazy. It was just a lot of fun for everyone.”

It was a torrent of feeling similar to the ones that result in Broich’s German raps. He isn’t an extrovert and doesn’t love performing his material. It’s more therapy.

When he wrote that first poem as a teenager, Broich gave the girl a CD instead of performing the rap live.

“I would have been too nervous for that,” he said.

Writing has helped him deal with lost love, or the multiple occasions in which family members and close friends have passed away while he’s been in the United States.

“When there are struggles I like to write it down and solve it through that instead of doing something stupid,” said Broich, who first came to the U.S. as a 21-year old after a professional soccer career stalled.

Broich made a music video with the Winthrop soccer team about the importance of shirking social media for actual human interaction. The video shows the Eagle players at different locations around the school’s campus lip-syncing Broich’s German lyrics, with varying degrees of success.

Winthrop’s seniors were asked before the season to pick a song to play in warm-ups and Broich picked that song, called “Connected With Life.” Hearing the song that reminds Broich of the bond with his teammates fires him up to perform in goal.

“Then I’m even more focused,” he said. “They like it and they can actually sing a bit because they have heard it so many times.”

This postseason run is the last college soccer chance for a number of Winthrop players, and the coach, Posipanko, who is retiring after 37 years. Broich plans to graduate in May before giving professional soccer one final shot.

But all that can wait until next summer. There is one verse of his Winthrop story still to be written.

This story was originally published November 18, 2015 at 2:56 PM with the headline "FabroRap coming up big during Winthrop men’s soccer run to College Cup."