A coach tells MLS NEXT seniors aiming for Division I soccer to skip fall club games and hit ID camps instead, email coaches with highlight videos before games, treat Division II/III as backup plans, and start now. College coaches rarely show up to fall matches.
If you're playing MLS NEXT and you're a senior, here are 5 things you should do right now if you still want to play Division I college soccer. Number 1, you have to understand they're not going to come to any of your fall games for the most part. Maybe there's a rare exception, but just assume they're not. Which means you're going to have to consider their fall ID camps, which happen in September, October. You'll have to negotiate that with your club team because you don't want to get angry— have them be angry at you. You must go to their games this fall. So when I say go to their games, I don't just mean show up and hopefully they like you. Of course, you should email them beforehand inquiring about which game to attend. Hopefully they say yes, please come, because you've been sending videos. And then voilà, now you have a meeting with the coach and they know they really like you. For your plan B schools, you wanna basically ask them which game should you attend so that way you know which ones to go to and you would go out of your way to go to that game. Number 3 is if you don't at this point have any interest from the Division IIIs or Division IIIs in any capacity, you do need to seriously consider those schools. Because if you don't and you still only want to play Division I and all of a sudden November, December comes around, you may not get to play college soccer. At this point, if you have not sent any full games to any coaches, it's very unlikely you're going to play Division I college soccer. And it's very unlikely they're going to watch a full game if you send it tomorrow. So you need to send a couple every-touch videos as a version of following up. If you're worried you're not getting the responses you want, then the camps are really your last-ditch effort to get in front of their eyes, to get their attention, which will happen in September, October, November, and they often coincide with a game, and that can often coincide with a visit, and that can lead to something very eventful. For those of you listening who are not seniors, you can see my urgency here, so if you haven't started already, I strongly encourage you, and every senior will tell you that they wish they pretty much started a little bit earlier. If you want more help, give me a call, links in the bio, talk to you soon, goodbye.
