College soccer coaches use showcases to confirm players they've already vetted, not to discover new ones. Email coaches before the event requesting a handshake. If they decline, approach them informally anyway. Either way, you've signaled interest.
You are making this huge mistake when you go to showcases. You think that the college coaches are going there to find talent. That is incorrect. They have already found the talent. They want to see the talent. They want to confirm what they saw on video, via email, via coach's reference, that they are very good at playing soccer. So if you think you're going to go there and ball out and they're just going to be up on a stadium field watching you, you are unfortunately out of your gourd. Instead, they need to think you are the talented player before you go. We have our students ask this question when they write the emails. May I ask to shake your hand in person at the showcase? And the reason we have this is because this question does many things for us. First of all, it could be a meeting. So now you have a set up meeting. Second of all, it confirms whether or not they're coming to your game. And third of all, there's many cases where you're technically not allowed to shake their hand which means if they say no, we're not allowed, that means they read your grad year, they know who you are, and they're still interested in meeting you. So you need to go find them at the showcase. Even if they said they can't shake your hand, you're allowed to go say hello. You just can't have it be official, quote unquote. So this question gets us the best responses for showcases. If you want more help playing CallTucker, give us a call, link in the bio. Talk soon.
