After patiently biding his time with the reserves, FC Kaiserslautern keeper Luis Robles is finally catching a first team break.

Since completing a permanent summer move to the Red Devils, despite rivaling interest from other clubs, the former University of Portland star had become integral to the Oberliga involved reserve team, but had found a first team debut elusive.

That picture has since changed when starting keeper Florian Fromlowitz suffered a season ending cruciate ligament injury to his left knee in a recent 1-0 loss to 1899 Hoffenheim, thereby moving the young American up the pecking order to the senior team bench.

"You never hope that your teammate gets injured," Robles described to American Soccer Daily. "But you've got to be wise enough to take advantage of it."

"I know the coach has confidence in me. There was talk of buying another keeper, but the coach came right out and squashed those rumors, saying that we essentially have two starting keepers. That was big for me, and it gave me a lot of confidence."

With his first team debut approaching, the young keeper is well aware of the added pressure. It's a burden shared by new starter Tobias Sippel, who is just 19 years of age.

"Now that I'm on the bench, with what happened to Florian, there is this focus," added Robles. "At training, every time that Sippel even remotely takes a knock, all of the guys look to me like 'you're the starting keeper'."

"There is that added pressure, but all I can do is work. It's totally different now. Week in and out, I'm ready to play."

In the midweek 2-1 DFB Pokal cup defeat to Rot-Weiss Essen, which knocked FCK out of this year's competition, Sippel was shown a late red card with but seconds remaining in the contest. As a result, the young starter has been sentenced to a two-match ban to take effect in similar DFB Pokal games, effective next season.

Should the young keeper lash out with a similar burst during Sunday's trip to Alemannia Aachen, the result could see Robles thrust into the spotlight.