Youth soccer club level determines college recruiting prospects. AYSO and rec leagues get almost no attention, while elite tiers like BCNL and USL Academy lead to Division I offers. MLS NEXT 2's emergence and early national team call-ups can boost your chances with top programs.
Your club level determines your recruiting ceiling. Here's the truth about each and every league. These are actually my jerseys from when I was playing during my recruiting process. At the bottom, you have AYSO or rec leagues. There's no recruiting done at this level. NPL, E-64, EDP, there's minimal recruiting done. You have to focus on Division III soccer for sure. High school soccer, there's really no recruiting done here, but you can get some great video and you can still send it out and it can still help you get recruited. Aim for Division III and Division II schools if you're doing only high school. BCNL, USL Academy, Girls Elite Academy. This is the gold standard for recruiting. There will be coaches and you can get exposure. And you can definitely play Division 1 college soccer, but you must know you're competing with MLS NEXT. This tends to be where the best competition is. GA Cup, FEST, these are huge. MLS NEXT 2 is now in this world, which can be a game changer. But there's actually one more ahead of MLS NEXT that very few people talk about. If you're part of the national team or you've been called into the pool, Now you would think if you are at this level you're just going to get recruited super easy, but there's actually a lot of players that get called into the national team at different points in their life. You get injured, coaches change jobs. So if you've been called into the national team at any point, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th grade, you must tell the college coaches. They need to know who you are. You will then have a very good chance of playing for a top 5 program. Comment the word club to see where you should be in the recruiting process based off your club level.
