A former player explains how high school soccer became his path to a Division I scholarship and professional career. He used JV game footage combined with club highlights to get recruited, since college coaches rarely attend high school games. High school matters mainly as video content, but only if your coach helps distribute it and you're also playing competitive club soccer.
Does high school soccer mean nothing? High school soccer does not mean nothing. First of all, if you're not playing MLS next, then you're going to be playing, you know, a quarter of your season, your soccer career is going to be in high school. So high school is really important, and playing for a high-level high school or a high school that does well, or you do well in high school, is really helpful. To tell you a quick story, I was playing JV soccer in high school as a junior because I wasn't on the varsity team. I wasn't playing MLS next or ECNL or any of those things. I went on to play college soccer at the D1 level on a full ride, and then I went pro. But that is to say, my, my JV soccer footage was really helpful When I mixed it with my club, because I got the ball a lot more playing JV soccer as a junior, and my video looked really good. Now they still had to see me in person, and there's lots of follow-up process, but it was— high school was a huge part of my recruiting process and will be a huge part of yours. But the college coaches will not come to your games, so you cannot expect them to recruit you there. So ultimately, high school basically just means video. Now, if your high school coach is willing to help you every single day and go through every video and every email, well, then high school coach can be really helpful to you. All I would just warn you is don't depend on high school, and you definitely have to be playing club soccer. But high school can totally help you play club soccer. If you want
