A coach explains how 11-year-old soccer players can stand out to MLS Next and ECNL academies. Make a one-minute highlight video from game footage, send it to club teams immediately, and email college coaches every three to four months for years. Few kids this age have videos, so it's a real advantage.
If I'm 11 years old, how long should my highlight video be that I want to send out to MLS Next and ECNL Academies? Now mind you, this is pre-academy, but the sooner you get in, the way more likely you stay in. It's much more difficult to get in when you're 13, 14, 15 than it is to get in right now at this young age. I want to tell you the length of the video, but I just want to tell you a story really quickly about an 11-year-old who we started with. So initially with this 11-year-old, we were going through game videos. So we made about 6 to 7 full game every-touch videos so we could review them. Then we took those 6 to 7 every-touch videos and then we made a highlight video. Now for this age, we only need about a minute. We don't need more than that because you're still getting better, and of course we don't expect you to have a ton of footage at this age, but all of that footage was filmed sideways with a VO or with a trace. We want the bird's eye view. You can give us iPhone footage also, which we would also love a second highlight video that's just a 1-minute video of social media because it's a different angle and that's great for us too. Now you're thinking, well, what would you do with this video? You're gonna send it to the club teams. We want you to send that to the club teams right away. You're way more likely to make it if you send them a video, especially assuming you're very good. You send them a video going, here's how good I am, I'd like to try out for your team. Very few kids have videos at this age, so the fact that you have a highlight video and you're sending it out already is a game changer. Second, you can review the video to of course get better, and then if you work with us, we have you start emailing the college coaches. Now when we email the college coaches, we do it in drips. So like every 3 to 4 months we would say, hi college coach, I know I'm only 11, 12 years old, I want you to know I watched your game last week, I'm a big fan, I wanted to share some video. I know you can't respond if that's a D1 school. D3s and D2s can respond to at any age. And I just wanted to give you an update. And if you do this for 3 to 5 years, you will basically guarantee that they will know who you are. And the coaches change jobs, and now because you're worried, oh, but my kid's not good enough, then don't send video. Your kid's not good enough, you're not the people I'm talking to. I'm talking to the kids who are already very good at soccer, who wanna play pre-ECNL, who wanna play MLS Next, who are already good for their age. That's what this is for. If you want more help, give me a call or DM me. Talk soon, goodbye.
