The Youth College Soccer Guy walks through how one player moved from an NPL club to MLS NEXT to college visits at Princeton and Columbia. It starts at age 8 with a conversation about college goals, then a highlight video, three tryouts over three years, and MLS NEXT showcases by freshman year. By junior year, Ivy League programs were calling.
How I got one of my students to be playing MLS NEXT from an NPL team and then being recruited by Princeton. I'm the Youth College Soccer Guy and I help you play MLS NEXT or ECNL in under 60 seconds. Here we go. First of all, we had a conversation with them when they were about 8 years old and we explained to them, hey, if you want to be a college soccer player one day, we explain this to the parents, you're going to have to switch teams at some point and we need to start exploring. The family were nervous to leave their team because they really liked their coach, they really liked the club team. I said, that's great, but right now we just know statistically that there's more exposure to other teams, so we don't have to leave yet, but there will become a time when we're gonna have to explore it. So before we explore, we needed to make a highlight video. So we made a highlight video first. We tried out 3 times. So it took 3 years for them to eventually make the MLS Next team. During those 3 years, they would go back to their club team and keep a good relationship. And that coach that they had was very good and encouraging and said, we know you want to be for the best team, go for that. By the time they hit freshman year, they were playing MLS Next. They were going to showcases and this player actually said to the coach, I'm going to be at one of your games. Going into his junior year, he was invited on a visit with Columbia and Princeton to go watch their games. If you want more help, call me. That was under 60 seconds, bye.
