A soccer recruiting coach tells high school sophomores to start with Division III schools and use high school awards for visibility. Club soccer matters for exposure to college coaches. He shares family success stories and offers recruiting consulting services.
What is better, high school soccer or club soccer if you're a sophomore? First of all, if you're playing high school, this probably means you're not playing MLS NEXT and you can still play college soccer. Immediately, you need to aim for Division III schools first. You cannot just skip to Division I schools even if you're all-region, all this, all that. I had a student, one of the best students I've ever seen, and I really think he's a Division I player. I still think he's a Division I player, but he did not eventually make it to Division I and he's playing for the top national championship, basically winning Division II team, and they're probably better than Division I teams. So the first is if you're not playing MLS NEXT, you must consider Division II. Second is high school can help you get footage, and getting rewarded in high school as a sophomore, say all-conference or all-league, is really helpful because college coaches then know that despite you not playing MLS NEXT, you are the best one probably in your state or certainly in your region, and that does have weight to it. If you look at Harvard-Westlake, they won CIF and they have a number of players who are going to go play college soccer, including Division I soccer, but they got the interest while playing club. This brings me to the final point, which is club soccer is not only a requirement, but you want to be at a point where you're going to camps and then you're messaging the teams, hey, I play for this club team, I play for this club team, and I got this award at high school. If you're not getting those awards, then you don't get to just email Division I or Division II programs. You must email Division III schools and then earn your way up and up and up. And you must realize that Division III schools are really good. My brother played Division III soccer. I played pro soccer, and on a daily basis when we continue to play today, people ask if he was the pro, not me. Division 3 soccer is very high level. I've helped thousands of kids play college soccer at this point, raising literally millions of dollars in scholarship. If you want help playing college soccer, give me a call. Links in the bio. Bye.
