A former pro soccer player explains three ways to get recruited into MLS NEXT or ECNL: attend elite camps at ages 5-8, submit highlight videos through the MLS portal, or have your coach reach out to academy directors. Starting late, at 14 or 15, rarely works.
You will never play in MLS NEXT at the youth level unless you do these 3 things. First of all, there are 3 main ways to get recruited into the MLS NEXT or any MLS NEXT world. And the first one, most important one, is starting really early. I'm talking ages 6, 7, 8. If you go to one of these camps by the age of 5, 7, 6 years old and you're really good, right, for a 6, 7, 8-year-old, which means you probably started kicking a ball with your mom and dad around 2, 3, 4 years old, you go to the camp and you're one of the standout players. The people that run these camps are there to make sure most of the kids have a fun time, but for a few of them, 3, 4 of them, they will then talk to their academy directors and say, hey, this little munchkin's really good, I think we should take note of them and bring them into our camp. And the reason this is so important is this is almost only the guaranteed way to get eyeballs on you within the Galaxy organization is at a camp like this. Now if you go to these camps at 14, 15, typically they're not very high level and so they're not really recruiting. At a younger age they actually are looking, hey, we need players for our team, who can we pick from? The next option is you can literally click on recruitment and you'll see you have to send in some information including a video. So upload your video. So this means you would need a really good highlight video. Now if you submit this and you're 13, 14 years old, you're probably too late. The chance that they look at your video and then decide that, oh, you're amazing, is pretty unlikely. The reason for this is they already have a team, of course. This is why starting so young is so special, because they don't have a team. They have to put together the numbers, so they need new people. When they already have a team, now they're comparing your video to what they have. And then the third and final way is if you go play for an organization, say in Southern California, and you're really, really good, it's possible that your club coach, whoever you're playing for, knows one of these directors or one of these scouts, right? And here are their names. Message all these people on LinkedIn with your video as well. The problem is, at this point, you're asking your son or daughter or you to be the best one by far because you're just so good, and then these coaches hear about you, and that's just unlikely. Like, they're gonna pick somebody for that, but it's probably not gonna be you, and it certainly was never me. Yet I went on to play college and pro soccer for a very long time, even though I was never picked. But I want to get picked, absolutely. My parents didn't know to put me in this youth organization, and now I'm telling you to do that. You can message all these coaches on LinkedIn, but you gotta have a video if you're gonna do it. If you want more help playing MLS NEXT or ECNL, give me a call. Links in the description, the bio. Talk soon.
