Meet the Ireland star inspired by Katie McCabe's rags to riches story
For Katie McCabe, her career-changing incident happened eight years ago when a loan move to Glasgow City reminded her of everything she had but showed her everything that could be lost.
Now look at her, the fourth Irish woman to win a Champions League, and just the 14th Irish player in all to pocket the most coveted medal in club football.
Marissa Sheva has stood at that crossroads junction, too.
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'Yeah, you've just given me goosebumps thinking about what Katie achieved,' Sheva, McCabe's fellow Irish international said. 'I can't even imagine how she feels. I don't think it's sunk into the rest of us as winning the Champions League is one of the top things you can do.
"It's just incredible. She's proven herself on the biggest stages in the world now.
'And we're excited for her. Hopefully she has many, many more opportunities to make it back to the Champions League final, and I don't doubt for a second that she'll be back many times. I hope she's celebrating hard right now.'
Yet Sheva is also drinking the moment in.
The Sunderland and Ireland midfielder said: 'It gives the whole team confidence to be able to say we play with Katie. I would never put myself on Katie McCabe's level but just knowing we get to train with her, we get to see just how she operates pretty consistently should give all of us confidence. We can all strive for a little bit more.'
From the start, she has never settled for being ordinary, making her way initially through athletics where she was a champion middle distance runner, before she won a football scholarship to Penn State university.
Success followed there too - a NCAA title being the highest prize any college athlete could hope for in the United States.
That said, college football has a short shelf-life as well as being amateur, and when she was 21, Sheva knew she had to make the right decision: get into the rat race or follow the dream.
It was an easy choice. Moves to Deportivo La Coruna, Utah, Washington and Portland followed but the option of transferring to Sunderland in March was too good to turn down, getting her closer to home and within Irish boss, Carla Ward's, sights.
Thirteen times she has been capped by Ireland under three different managers, Vera Pauw, Eileen Gleeson and Ward and it's only now she is beginning to feel confident in her surroundings, which is often the case with footballers who break through late.
Sheva says: 'Carla's style of play fits mine.
'She's been very helpful with specific things about my game; Carla is seeking me to turn forward and drive with the ball, to be more confident.
'It's crazy just how her bringing that to my attention has made such a huge difference. I'm nowhere near a complete midfielder so I'm willing to take any and all information she has to give me.
'Composure is something that every midfielder kind of aspires to have. I look at someone like Denise O'Sullivan who is a complete midfielder, tactically aware, and one of the best technical players I have played with. I am just kind of trying to be more like Denise.'
She gets her chance to continue her impersonation of O'Sullivan - who is arguably on McCabe's level in terms of quality if not profile - when Ireland face Turkey and then Slovenia over the next week.
Currently second in their Nations League group, behind Slovenia, Ireland need two wins to have any chance of topping their group and earning promotion to the top tier. A visit to the play-offs is likelier.
But Sheva says: 'We have a lot of work to do. We need to beat Turkey and then need to handily beat Slovenia.
"If that doesn't happen, there are play-offs, a bunch of things that would have to happen for us to potentially get back into group A.
"We are not even thinking about that, we just know that we have a lot of work on our hands here and it starts in Turkey (on Friday). That's our first goal, beat Turkey and get back to Cork and prepare for Slovenia.'
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