Preparing for a Soccer Showcase
ECNL, MLS NEXT, GA, and other prominent national showcases are just around the corner. You may be asking yourself, “What should I do prior to the showcase?” or “How do I get noticed at these events?” You only get a couple games to make an everlasting impression on college coaches that attend your games. So how can you put yourself in the best position leading up to the event?
The first thing you should do is determine which colleges coaches are attending! Leading up to these showcases, they release the list of college coaches well before the first whistle. Get ahold of this list, see which schools fit your criteria, and start gathering contact information. If you want them to come to YOUR games, you will need to reach out to them personally. Before you send out your emails, make sure you’ve got your game schedule and a recruiting highlight video ready to go. Both of these things are crucial when reaching out!
Put yourself in the coaches’ eyes. When attending a showcase, there are hundreds of games that take place in a short amount of time. They will have to pick and choose games they want to attend based on their recruiting needs. A generic email might not be enough to get a coach excited to watch you. In the initial email, you must find a way to get their interest.
MAKE A RECRUITING HIGHLIGHT VIDEO
When creating your recruiting video, you should be thinking how you can get a coach excited before they watch you step on the field! When creating your highlight video, keep these few simple things in mind.
Do not have a long redundant video. Coaches get plenty of emails leading up to attending a showcase. They do not have time to watch a 30-minute video.
Make sure in the email it is a link to your video that doesn’t require them to download. You want to make it easy to access.
Highlight a handful of your strengths. One segment of you playing is not enough to get a coach excited.
Watch the video attached to get some tips on creating a soccer recruiting video. If you are looking to outsource your recruiting video. Look into our services at Tekkers Media as we offer affordable recruiting videos and create soccer recruiting videos that you can be confident in sharing with coaches. LEARN MORE
WAIT TO SEND AN EMAIL UNTIL YOU GET YOUR GAME SCHEDULE
This might seem obvious, but wait to make any contact with coaches until your game schedule is set. The whole point of going to these showcases is to get noticed. If you send out an email stating you are coming to the tournament with no game schedule, it defeats the purpose of even reaching out. Coaches do not have the time to go through the tournament schedule to find out when your team is playing, especially if you have never had prior contact with the college coach.
Your schedule doesn’t need to be this crazy graphic; feel free to post on your social media, but a college coach doesn’t need those in the email. List the opponent, game time, field, and location (might be multiple field locations) in a clear way. Example:
Friday, October 20th
Game 1: vs. “ECNL team”
Field #1 @ 3:30 PM
Address to field
FIRE OUT THOSE EMAILS
Now that you have a highlight video ready to go and your set game schedule, start reaching out to the schools of interest. Do not include blanket statements in that email! College coaches will sniff that out. Make it slightly personal. The email should hit on all the following things.
Player profile information such as Position, Graduation year, Current team, and any important accolades.
A statement on why the school you are reaching out to is of interest. Does not need to be SOCCER RELATED!
Link to your highlight video
A clear outline of your game schedule
IN CONCLUSION
By doing these things prior to your next ECNL, MLS NEXT, GA, or any other National showcase, you are giving yourself the best chance possible to get your schools of interest out to your field! Once you get them to your showcase game, it is on you to showcase you at your highest level. Remember when at a showcase you are representing your personal brand on and off the field and play to your strengths; don’t try to be someone you aren’t. Not one of the things above is more important than the other. The more research and time you put into getting your name out before the showcase the better opportunity you are giving yourself to play infront of the coaches you want.