College coaches miss talented youth soccer players because they lack visibility before camps, don't stand out enough, and never follow up afterward. A top U-16 Mexican national player went unnoticed at a Pepperdine camp simply because the coach wasn't already watching her.
These are 3 reasons why some players get noticed by college coaches and others don't. If you don't have interest beforehand as a sophomore or a junior, you're not going to necessarily stand out when you go to their camp, when you go to a showcase. You cannot depend for them to just pick you out of the blue. They have to know who you are before you go. Your playing style may not be the flashiest of all the styles. Because you're not the flashiest player, you're not just going to get picked like another winger or maybe another striker who is standing out. You might be more of a a simple player, or you may just not have the attributes that are sparkly. If that's the case, which was very similar to me, you need to have them watch you many times over and zoom in on you. If you just expect for them to notice you at camp, you're crazy. I went to this Pepperdine camp once, and I was watching these families and these girls, and I picked out a few girls. I'm like, I think they're the best ones. And I struck a conversation with a family next to me, and they— and I said, who's your daughter? They pointed to her, and she was not on my list. Then they showed me her video. She was playing for the U16 Mexican national team. She was probably the best one there and I didn't see her. So maybe I'm a bad coach, which might be the case, or there's so many girls that in her scenario she wasn't playing super well, or I just didn't notice her game when she was playing. That can happen as well. But if I had received an email from the family and saying, hey, we're going to, you know, we're going to come to your camp and I'm not a college coach, but this is for college coaches. I'm going to be at your camp. I'd love for you to watch me. Then they'll watch you and then you have way more chance of being seen. And the final one is follow-up. You have to follow up 3 to 5 times. If you want more help, comment camp and we can send a camp list to you. If you're on TikTok, comment call and I can schedule a, uh, send a link to you so we can schedule a call. And remember, these
