The College Soccer Guy explains why USL Academy players struggle to get recruited for college soccer. The system develops players for professional contracts, not college exposure, so athletes must create highlight videos, attend ID camps, and email coaches themselves. They typically need more camps than ECNL or MLS Next players.
Is USL Academy good for getting recruited to play college soccer? I'm The College Soccer Guy and I help you play college soccer. Comment "call" if you want more help. USL Academy is a really good level, okay? I played USL 2 myself for Des Moines Menace, Seattle Sounders, and the USL is a high level. But typically speaking, unfortunately, the USL Academy is oriented towards helping kids go pro within the USL system or helping them go play USL 2. They don't typically care as much about college. Now the good news is if you're playing USL Academy, you're really good. That means somebody thinks you might be able to be a pro soccer player one day, or at least be very competitive inside the USL Academy industry. But they don't go to any showcases, and there's not a lot of exposure. Now, if you're training with the first team, which we've had players do before, you want that not only on video, but you want to see if the coach is willing to make calls for you. Now, soccer's subjective. Just 'cause you're playing USL Academy does not mean that you're just going to be able to play pro. For example, I was playing at the Richmond Kickers, and we had like 3 or 4 kids who are seniors in high school training with us, they didn't just go to the best schools in the country. Those same college coaches were like, yes, I know you're training with a pro team, but we might find another player better than you. We might know an MLS Next kid. We might know an MLS Next kid that's turning down a pro contract with an MLS team, let alone a USL team. And so we're gonna look at them first. So you still have to go to camps. You still have to write emails. You still have to get genuine interest. You've gotta make sure you're on calls. You gotta make sure you're on visits and you gotta make sure you get seen often. So you're gonna have to go to more camps actually than ECNL kids and even definitely more than MLS Next kids. Against the next kids. However, you're really good. So does it mean you should switch? No. It just means you need a lot of video because your video is really powerful because you're playing against good teams and you're going to have to go to ID camps to get genuine interest. And your way to get recruited is through video and a reference from your coach, whether it be your USL team or USL Academy. You got to coach your coach on how to contact coaches and how you follow up. If you want more help and you are playing USL Academy or any other league, comment "call" and I'll be able to schedule a call with you and your parents. I can send you guys a link to schedule a call. I look forward to talking to you soon. Thanks for your time. Talk soon. Bye.
