A breakdown of what scouts want in a center midfielder, using an NCAA tournament final performance as the example. The player's Ødegaard-like head movement, intelligent positioning as a third center-back, and defensive marking stood out. Coach quality matters more than school name for recruitment.
Scouting a center mid to see if they're good enough to play call soccer, aka they are actually in the final of the NCAA tournament. Let's watch them together so you can learn what you need to do to play call soccer. If you already know what happened in this game, don't ruin the score for those people who want to rewatch it. But at this point, you probably should already know who won. Okay, I want you to watch this guy right here. His body movement is excellent and he moves his head like Ødegaard and kind of runs like Ødegaard. And this kid can definitely play pro soccer. So watch him check in here from the goalkeeper. He sees it, easy one-touch pass, but see how right afterwards he moves even though he wasn't going to be available from the goalkeeper, he may be available for the next one. Watch this real quick. Right now the right back's in a lot of trouble, or this is actually the center back rather, and this happens all the time. Now as the center mid, he's great and he's saying go back around, which is the correct thing to do if you want to keep it. And look, he's going to end up going down the line probably, but as a center mid in the future, he could potentially drop here, right, and act as a third center back. The answer probably is to go back here. And U-Dub's coach, by the way, Mr. Clark, is an incredible human, super awesome, very kind, and his team freaking won the whole thing, which is so cool. And just to add to that, Washington and NC State, while they're both amazing teams, they're not, you know, technically favorites to win the whole thing, which is why it's so important you pick your coach, not the name of the school, if you want to play at the highest level and have a great experience. But having said that, we love— see how he's pointing? It tells us that you understand the game. Now the team lost it here because the guy kicked it down the line. Watch his defending. This is against their number 10, right? So probably their best player against maybe the best guy to keep possession for. His main job at this point is do not let the ball go into the striker. That is his job. He is always thinking, not always, you know, even the fact of stopping him from shooting. Of course he wants to stop him from that too, but do not let him go into the striker. And watch, he won't. Backwards is a win for him, and then boom, that's a win. But you see how he still marks him? He could probably mark this space in here, right? Because maybe he could have played a through ball into the striker, but he also knows this is the best player. This is why it's so important that we get to watch full game footage of you guys. But the coaches are so busy, they're not going to watch the full game as a center mid. They're going to watch a highlight video of you doing the on-the-ball stuff, then watch an every-touch video, then they will request a full game. And you have to do it in that order, otherwise you won't get recruited. If you're a center mid and you want to know what you need to do to get recruited, comment the word center mid.
