In this video, ColdSoccerGuy (the “College Soccer Guy”) breaks down the youth club soccer landscape to help players understand where the E64 league fits in the recruiting pipeline. He introduces a “dotted‑line” framework that separates leagues into two tiers: clubs below the line (E64, NPL, NPL Pro, AYSO United) that primarily feed Division III and lower‑tier Division II programs, and clubs above the line (ECNL, RRL, MLS Next, Elite Academies, NAL) that increase the odds of Division I offers. He explains that while MLS Next produces many professional prospects, most of its players still fail to secure college spots without targeted outreach. For E64 and similar leagues, Division I and top‑tier Division II coaches often ignore emails, leaving only lower‑tier Division III, NAIA, and USCAA programs to consider prospects. He stresses that Division III is still a high‑level, academically prestigious option and can be leveraged to gain interest from higher‑level schools. The speaker shares case studies—two MLS Next players who secured Division I offers after revamping their communication, and an E64 player targeting elite Division III schools like Caltech and Claremont. He advises E64/NPL players to be hyper‑proactive: send more personalized emails, attend multiple ID camps, and choose showcases where known college coaches will be present. He also notes regional recruiting realities: coaches rarely travel cross‑country for regional/state cups, preferring local events or national playoffs (e.g., ECNL, MLS Next). The overall message is that E64 is a useful stepping‑stone, but players must treat it as a launchpad toward higher‑level clubs or focus on Division III schools, using academic strength and targeted outreach to maximize their chances of playing college soccer.
Chapters
ColdSoccerGuy, what do you think about the E64 league? Is it a good league? Is it a bad league? What do you think? I'm the ColdSoccerGuy and I help you play CONMEBOL soccer. So E64 is relatively new. I want to back up just for 2 seconds to say, look, there's other leagues similar to E64 and I want to group them together for this video. We've got AYSO United, NPL, NPL Pro, Basically, I want you to kind of think of the recruiting process like this. There's a dotted line here, okay? And every club underneath this dotted line is still possible to play college soccer, specifically at the D3 and D2 levels, on the lower end of those levels. So not the top schools, but the lower end of those levels. Above that dotted line, you've got ECNL RL, NAL, MLS Next, ECNL, Boys Elite Academy, Girls Elite Academy, who also are lucky if they play Division III, Division II, or Division I. But if you're above this line, the chances of playing Division I soccer increase quite a bit. Now, if you're playing ECNL, RRL, Boys Elite Academy, Girls Elite Academy, you can still— NAL— you can still play college soccer at the Division I level, but it's pretty challenging. And then if you're playing MLS NEXT, you can play college soccer at the Division I level, but you also may not play college soccer at all. So it's not quite cut and dry. In fact, most players who are playing MLS NEXT will not, will not play college soccer. So there's a lot of reasons for that. Some of them are like, I only want to play for the top 25 schools, otherwise I don't want to play college soccer anymore. Some of them are not good enough according to the recruiting process. Some of them didn't do what they needed to do. We had one student, it was, we had two students actually, they were both MLS NEXT players, neither of them got any offers. They had to take a gap year still were getting no offers, then called me. I fixed everything about the way they were communicating, their videos, and gave them the correct list of schools, told them what coaches to contact, and then they both did play Division I soccer. So just because you're playing MLS Next does not make you a college soccer player. But here's the thing: when you're playing E64 and NPL and you email the coach and you say, I'm playing E64, the Division I coaches immediately don't look at that email any longer. Division II coaches, the top tier, do not look at the email any longer. Bottom tier will, and same with bottom tier Division 3 schools. Or there's another conference called USCAA, which is also college soccer. Those will as well, and NAIA will as well at the lower end of NAIA. Now the tone of voice I have is, for some of you will be like, man, Division 3 soccer sucks, like I don't want to play that stupid level. Do you know less than 5% of kids will play Division 3 soccer? So it's a very, very big deal. It still means you're very Very good. If you're playing college soccer at all, that means you're a baller. So first of all, that's freaking awesome. We had a student the other day on my TikTok Live, and they're like, I'm getting all this hate for trying to play only Division III. And I told everybody, like, he's the genius, because if he plays— tries and plays Division III, gets an offer early on, he can then have time to leverage it against the higher-level schools. And Division III high-academic schools are Division I level. They're so competitive, and they're so good. That they are literally Division 1 level teams. So that's where the nuance comes in. Now if you're like, I really, really want to play college soccer, take like a Chapman or Cal Lutheran, which is Division 3. Do you know how competitive those are? Crazy. UC Santa Cruz, so difficult to play college soccer there. So it's so, so competitive. So to play Division 3, you— to give yourself the best chance, you want to be above that dotted line, which is Eastern RL, NAL, MLS Next, Boys of the Academy, etc. If you're playing NPL or E64, you're below that dotted line, and now your exposure just gets decreased a lot. Now, specifically to E64— E64 is a new league. The league will claim that they have showcases and whatnot because I've gone on their website, but they just don't get the level of exposure that the other schools are. Look, I have no bias. I don't— the college coaches too, they don't care. They don't care if ECNL— if, if tomorrow E64 had the best kids They're all switching to E64. That's just how it works. Now it happens to be with your location, where you are, etc. But E64 is a good league as a stepping stone. Play E64, but you're going to want to try and work up the ladder. If you cannot, we have a student right now who's playing E64. They have told them specifically, you're a Division III soccer player only, but they have a 4.0 GPA and they want to go to Caltech. Caltech is a lower-end soccer level team, but one of the most competitive academic schools in the entire world. So this student may have a chance to do so. There's some other Division III schools that have shown interest in him. Claremont, which is an amazing school. But he is specifically and only focusing on Division III per my suggestion because in my opinion he's a Division III level soccer player. And since he's not going to make an MLS Next team as of today, it would be a waste of time for him to go try out or go to Division I ID camps. Now I will be the first to tell you soccer is subjective, okay? This is just my expert opinion for him. He needs to go to maybe 1 or 2 Division I ID camps, have them tell him what level he is, and then he can decide. He's also so smart that if he goes to a Division I ID camp and he kills it, maybe they'll say to him, you know what, we'll have you walk on if you get into the school by yourself. We're not going to give you a roster spot, but you can walk on. And some schools will allow for walk-ons, and many schools do not. Almost 100% of them do not let you walk on in the fall season. They'll let you walk on in the spring season. So going back to E64, main thing is it's below the dotted line. Now I wanted to also group in here NPL Pro and NPL because odds are that if you're playing E64, you know what those leagues are as well. They're kind of in the same boat, but they're slightly higher in different regions of the country than E64. And you also have to remember, as much as I'm quote unquote being harsh on E64, E64 within your region has a lot of potential. Like there will be college coaches who will go to your showcases within your region and recruit you even if you're playing in an E64 showcase. Like Jefferson Cup is a showcase where a lot of E64 and NPL teams go. There will be Division 1 coaches there. So it's definitely not impossible. In fact, it's very possible. But you have to do slightly more than what the other kids have to do. You have to write more emails. You have to go to more ID camps. You have to go to more showcases. You have to be more proactive than another kid has to be. Now the truth is they all have to be equally crazy proactive because that's how competitive— remember, College coaches get 6,000 emails, they shrink that to 1,000 kids that might be useful, then they shrink it to 500 kids who show up to their camp, and 300 kids that they think are useful, then 100 kids. Now they've got 100 kids to pick, and of those 100, they're going to pick 4, 4 to 5 every year. So the— it's just so extraordinarily competitive. So E64 is good, but I want you to use it as a stepping stone to try and go to another higher level club team and/or focus on Division III schools only and First, get the interest from them and then you can move on. And I'm going to say the same thing for NPL and NPL Pro. Now here's another thing that you may or may not like hearing. At those E64 events or the NPL Pro events, they have regionals or state cups. Unfortunately, college coaches don't often go to those unless it's a local school. Then they will try and go to those. But there's not going to be a school from the West Coast. So for example, UVA, which is a top Division I school, University of Virginia, they do not go to Surf Cup. Because they know that most of the kids on the West Coast do not want to move to Virginia, so it's a waste of time for them. So they only recruit on their side of the country and, you know, the top, top best players at the youth level abroad. So UVA is a tough one for you if you're playing Elite Academy. You know, that's not realistic. NC State, not realistic. North Carolina, UCLA, not realistic. So if you can put in your head that's not realistic, you can still play college soccer at an amazing school. You know, there's amazing Division III schools. Pacific Lutheran, Puget Sound, you've got Vassar, you've got Carnegie Mellon, which is a high-level academic school. There's so many great programs on every conference, so you shouldn't limit yourself to just the best schools, because then you'll end up probably not getting to play college soccer, which would be really sad. Plus, you can do both. Remember, aim for the Division IIIs first, and so on and so forth. So the last message, I just want to make sure it's clear, is the events, the states, cups, and the regionals, those often do not have college coaches at those events, unlike an ECNL playoff or an MLS Next playoff where there are tons of college coaches. Which means there's an argument to say you're better off going to a college ID camp than you are going to state or regionals with your team, which you probably won't like hearing, but that is the reality. The other thing is, if you're going to an NPL Pro event, there are plenty of Division II programs that are recruiting you for sure. Same with E64. E-64, but you need to be going to the ID camps in addition to. And the showcase you go to, make sure you look up which coaches are attending because there are still Division 1 coaches coming. It is not impossible, it's just less likely because of the exposure rate. I played E-64, the equivalent of that when I was growing up, until my senior year. You know, that's— I, and I played Division 1 soccer, so it's definitely possible, but you just have to put more work into it. I'm the College Soccer Guy. I help you play college soccer. Even if you're playing E64 or NPL Pro. I like helping the underdogs because that's what I was. But you have to be aware that if we're going to do it, we're going to focus on the Division 3 schools first, so that way we'll have the best chance of playing college soccer. I hope this finds you well, and if you would like more help, give me a call. Description link below, and I'll talk to you soon.
