A scout evaluates Captain #7, a defensive midfielder from Beverly Hills High School, on first touch, passing, and positioning during a match against Lenox. High school soccer gets limited recruiter attention, so club soccer and video highlights matter more than game footage. Comment "call" to discuss your college soccer pathway.
Scouting a defensive mid at a high school game to see if they're good enough to play college soccer. We're going to watch this player right here, Captain Number 7, to see if he is good enough to play college soccer. This is Beverly Hills High School versus Lenox. Here's our Number 6, great first touch forward, through pass. Now even though he messed it up, the idea that he was playing forward was obviously fantastic. And then right afterwards he gets right back into position, which we really like to see, especially since his job as the 6 is to maintain this space right here. Now high school soccer can often be a little bit frantic. This is the beginning of the game. So what we want to see from him especially is completed passes in a forward way. Great move initially and great. So now they can build a little bit of momentum and they can also build a rhythm. And as a coach, we're looking for who's the player that's going to build some rhythm, especially as a defensive center mid. Now, if you said to me, why did I pick him? Part of it was I saw that technically he looked like a good player. I saw that he was the captain. So that also made me want to watch him. And then, you know, depending on the teams that are out here, they have to obviously pick by position. And if, you know, you send out an email, that's also what makes them want to come watch you. Now, high school soccer has a limited amount of exposure, so you can't really expect them to come to games in order to find you just because it's not really realistic. So that's when you have to make sure that you're also playing club soccer. But video from a game like this can still be really helpful. Here's our number 7 again. Good composure. Lost it there. How's his reaction? He's done well. Gone in strong. See if he gets it again. A little flick to a teammate. Unlucky. Here he is again. Is he communicating? That's a foul. So with high school in particular, the games can be frantic where there's maybe 3 or 4 passes in a row and not more than that. So that can make it really difficult to stand out, especially if you're not the striker or the winger who they're frankly kicking the ball to. So to stand out to us, lots of talking and lots of pointing. Will immediately grab our attention just because it's a little bit of a frantic game out there sometimes. In high school soccer especially, you're looking for one moment. Because it's so inconsistent, like right now they're just going to kick it probably, they're not going to try and play. It's so inconsistent with the rhythm of the game. Sometimes you only get the ball 1 or 2, 3 times. Can you bring it down right there? Can you win that header? It's going to come down to very small moments. Like right there, how he's going, calm down, calm down. I'm going, okay, he's got a level of composure about him and he probably likes to play. He takes really good positions. I'd love to, you know, if I have a chance to talk to him after the game, I'd like to know. From the few minutes I've been here, I would say there's a potential for college soccer, but odds are he's probably a senior. It'd be pretty late. Maybe he's already been recruited. I need to talk to him a little bit more to find out his GPA and information like that. If you want more help playing college soccer, comment "call" and we can schedule a call with you and your parents.
