For coaches/players in college soccer — how is video review actually done in your program?

How much time goes into preparing clips before review sessions vs just going through full match footage live and pausing as needed?

Genuinely curious whether most programs still rely heavily on manual clipping/editing beforehand, or if that’s more dependent on staff size and resources.

What does it look like where you are?

So i want to play college soccer and i decided it really late at the start of 10th grade and now I have given my boards this year. In 10th grade I stopped playing for sometime to focus on my academics and then ended up not playing for any teams as my parents didn't allow me. But this year i will be playing for dsouza football academy( or it could be any other div1 team in mumbai) and i am from mumbai and i will play mfa div1, aiff youth league, dpdl mumbai, sfl mumbai and reliance league too. I am a 2011 born player and i am from class of 2028 but i will take a break after 12th grade for 1 year. I play as a midfielder. My height and weight is 5 feet 9 inches and 70 kg. Is it possible for me to play d1, d2 or NAIA?

This years tryouts seem to be much more intense because of age change. My daughter is U16 (birth year 2011) and is coming from being a 5 year ECNL starter as a defender. Long story short…her club loses their badge, she tries out for another ECNL team and makes it.

Year progresses, she is told “we already have our starting defenders and backup defenders never play here”…so she is forced to switch positions. Gives it her best but is not comfortable after being a defender for 5 years.

Anyway, she is not offered a spot back on the ECNL team and then we find out she will not be offered a spot on the RL team either because they are bringing an entire new club (EDP level) in to form the RL team along with their coach. So basically, they took my money for a year and made my kid a practice player.

So, onto tryouts…every ECNL coach tells me the same thing…we aren’t looking for defenders. We have all our starting defenders already. And because of the age change issue we have basically 75 kids trying out for like 2 spots on the RL team.

I definitely feel like my kid really got shafted because she is a good player but when she tries out she is immediately lumped into the “we already have this kind of player” on our team…

Have gone from being 5 year starter on ECNL team to not being able to even get an RL offer.

Have gotten 3 offers from GA, and lower level EDP clubs but the quality of play is so much less. Is this typical? Through no fault of my own, we were forced to find a new club when mine folded. Unfortunately every new club we try out for is full of politics, players who have been there for years etc.

I suppose I could just take the low level spot, but I feel like I am giving up. Not sure what to do. My daughter feels like she is an ECNL player (and was an ECNL starter for 5 years) and now cannot find a team

Do NJCAA D1 soccer programs offer full ride scholarship to international students? How does the JUCO recruitment timeline work, and how competitive is it?

Any information would be greatly appreciated!!! Thank you!

my kid is being recruited and everyone keeps talking about the transfer portal maybe I'm old school but i don't want him bouncing around to three different schools in four years. I want him to find a place where he's happy and stays but then i read about coaches leaving midseason or getting fired and kids getting stuck with a new staff that didn't recruit them or players getting pushed out because the new coach wants their own guys. So maybe the portal isn't just for disloyal players, maybe it's a safety net for when things go wrong.

TL;DR: I’ve been rewriting this for 3 days because I wanted to get the details right. If you’re stuck in the "junior year disillusionment" phase where coaches outside of DIII or NAIA aren't responding to emails, here is why you should keep going. I’m convinced the recruiting market “flips” senior year when coaches move from fantasy recruiting to solving actual roster problems. My non-ECNL daughter went from years of radio silence to having 8 programs actively recruiting her this spring (5 DII and 3 DI).

The Reality Check

My daughter was never an ECNL player; she played DPL. She was never the "best player on every field." No one was chasing her. But she stayed visible—ODP state team, high school soccer, camps, and lots of outreach to programs she was interested in.

1. The "Market Flip"

I’m not a college coach, and during the "radio silence" of sophomore and junior years, I didn't really know what they were doing because we weren't hearing from them. At the DPL level, coaches aren't going out of their way to find you; any interest we saw back then was usually a direct result of a specific ODP game where a coach happened to be on the sidelines.

But based on how the phone finally started ringing, I’m convinced the market "flips" late in the cycle. My theory is that it’s just simple math. Rosters are volatile:

• Early commits realize they don't actually want the grind and quit.
• Players hit the transfer portal or fail to meet admissions standards.
• ACL tears and injuries create immediate, desperate holes in a roster.

It felt like coaches shifted from "shopping for stars" two years out to "solving actual problems" six months out. When they need a reliable player to fill a gap right now, they stop looking for the "brand name" and start looking for the player who fits the need.

2. The "Rescue List" (My theory on why the data finally matters)

I have no idea if coaches actually call it a "rescue list," but that’s exactly how it felt to us. During my daughter's junior year, I’m convinced our emails and profile links were just digital noise. But when a coach suddenly loses an outside back to a transfer or an injury in the middle of a cycle, they don't have six months to go scouting at national showcases.

They need a solution now. The most logical step for them is to go to their recruiting databases and start hitting the filters:

• Graduation Year
• Position
• GPA / Academic Fit

If your profile is updated and your grades are solid, you suddenly pop up as the answer to their problem. We went from years of absolute crickets to receiving direct, urgent texts starting in November of her senior year. By this spring we had coaches offering to travel hundreds of miles specifically to stand on a high school sideline and watch her play.

The data didn't change, and her film didn't change. The only thing that changed was that the coaches finally had a specific hole to fill, and the database told them she was a fit. It’s why people often say recruiting sites are a scam. In my experience, they are—until they aren’t. They feel like a waste of money when you’re shouting into the void, but they become a vital tool the moment a coach actually has a crisis to solve.

3. The "DI or Bust" Trap

My daughter was fixated on DI until she actually visited a program she had "chased" forever. The coach was honest: she’d likely be at the end of the roster if she joined, and frankly, there was no guarantee an offer was even coming.

She saw the environment, the 6ams, film, mandatory sessions, and the 24/7 grind. She realized that for many, DI soccer isn't a sport; it’s a full-time job. She ultimately decided she wanted to play collegiate club soccer instead, choosing the school environment over the "DI label." Ironically, the moment she relaxed and stopped chasing, the most doors opened.

4. You do NOT need ECNL

The youth soccer world loves creating artificial hierarchies. I cannot tell you how many times we heard that ODP was a "consolation prize" for kids not in the "right" club ecosystem.

That is nonsense. Coaches absolutely pay attention to ODP. It’s a different evaluation platform, often run by college coaches themselves. If you can play, they will find you. The timeline just doesn’t look the same for everyone.

The Takeaway

Too many families convince themselves the door is closed way too early, and end up closing it themselves. The "logical" path you see on social media is for the 1%. For the rest of us, the process is messy. Waiting is a scary prospect, but it could land you the best opportunity.

Keep the profile updated, keep the grades high, and don’t let the "junior year disillusionment" dictate your daughter's worth.

Feels like the 2026 World Cup is going to bring a lot more attention to soccer in the US, but I’m curious if the lower levels of the game are actually ready for it.

There are more amateur and semi-pro leagues now than before, but depending on where you live, it still feels like a mixed experience. Some clubs seem really well-run and community-focused, while others don’t last very long.

It feels like soccer culture is growing outside MLS, but the structure underneath still feels a bit messy.

Do you think the lower levels of US soccer are actually improving, or is it mostly just more teams without much stability?

I struggle with this and wondered if I'm the only one.

When I train alone I genuinely don't know if I'm doing the drills right. I'll watch a YouTube video, try to copy it, and it feels okay but I have no way of knowing if I'm actually replicating the technique or just doing my own version of it badly. The only real feedback I get is game day, and even then it's not clear. if I miss a shot or lose the ball, was it the technique I'd been working on or just match pressure?

So I'll grind something for weeks, show up to a game, and basically have no evidence it made me any better. Then I'm back to square one wondering if I should keep going or switch to something else.

Anyone else experience this? How do you actually train alone in a way you trust? I'm doing some research into this to see if it's just me that feels this way.

• Do you film yourself and review it?
• Do you have specific drills where you can tell if you're progressing without needing a game to test it?
• Have you found a way to bridge the gap between "drill-rep technique" and "actually doing it under pressure"?
• Or do you just trust the process and accept you won't see results for months?

Genuinely lost on this one. Thanks 🙏

Did the math on what we've spent on club fees, travel, hotels, tournaments, and private training over the last few years. It's more than a year of college tuition at a state school. We're not rich, both of us work full time and we've made sacrifices, skipped vacations, drove old cars, ate at home a lot. Now my daughter is committed to a d1 school but only got a partial scholarship. Still going to be paying thousands out of pocket and i see families at tournaments flying to showcases in Florida and California like it's nothing. Are people just going into debt for this or do they actually have that much money. Also how do you tell your kid to keep grinding when you're already stretched thin. Feeling like we're in too deep to stop but not sure how much longer we can keep going.
For live matches and replays https://www.reddit.com/live/1gvoj5bdj405w

Everybody talks about the huge programs, but I feel like some of the best college soccer environments are at schools that don’t get much media coverage nationally. Smaller stadiums can get insanely intense when the student section is fully locked in, especially during conference matches or rivalry games.

I’ve been watching more college soccer lately and it honestly feels more unpredictable and emotional than people give it credit for. You’ll have future pros playing alongside guys who are just grinding for the badge and school pride, and that mix creates some crazy games.

Would love to hear some stories from people who actually go to games instead of just following scores online.

There are a lot of posts about what NOT to do. I'd just like a clear one about what you did do that got you there. I don't want this to devolve into a series of rants, just clear, concise:

Played ECNL, sent 235 emails, got 4 responses from d3 schools, went on visits to all 4, preferred XYZ university because ______. Or Played MLSN, used my clubs recruiting coordinator, his friend from Ohio works at ABC College of Arts.

I'd prefer only answers of people who were on actual college rosters as freshman (or parents) in the last 10 years and not just people who heard a rumor about one but I can't police that.

Not sure if there are any college coaches that pass through here but it seems like I've seen a few comment from time to time so here we go.

If a player has an August birthday, in the mid-Atlantic at least, they will be playing primarily with a graduating class below them as all the schools I know of have a September 1st cut off for enrollment. My question is how would this change your view on that player? Assuming the player is playing ECNL or MLS HG.

Follow up, would you recommend "playing up" in some show cases if the organization would allow it if you were going in person to see the player?

I hope that makes sense. I know it's a bit of uncharted ground but that's why I'm looking for a little guidance.

Thanks!

This is a question for people who used him (Zev, who brands himself as College Soccer Guy)

My kid is entering 9th grade in the fall and asking if he should meet this guy to help with college recruiting. His reels show up occasionally for me and usually are interesting but sometimes come off as strange. For example little things like mispronouncing Antonee Robinson's name and saying MLS Next Academy teams don't get badges. I know on a 0-100 scale of importance these are likely about negative 25 but undoubtedly this service is expensive and it gave me pause.

If I had to make a nonexpert guess, again not knowing how puberty/high school will go, my kid tracks towards D3 (solid MLSN AD, with occasional games with HD). Is there a value to hire someone to help with what will likely by a D3 path?