Ep 362: Insights into Youth Scouting and Recruiting, Plus is USL Doing Pro/Rel?

In this episode, we go into scouting and recruiting practices in American soccer, offering tips and insights from our 20 years of experience.

We start by addressing the recent news about USL’s ambitions for Division 1 status and the potential implementation of promotion and relegation. We emphasize the significance of understanding these developments at the youth level.

The conversation then shifts to the practical aspects of scouting and recruiting players, highlighting the importance of physical, technical, tactical, and psychological assessments. We also discuss the limitations and benefits of traditional tryouts and underscore how promotion-relegation could incentivize better scouting and player recruitment across the ecosystem.

00:00 Intro
02:51 USL Implementing pro/rel
17:11 Recruiting/Scouting Discussion – What are Brian and I looking For in a Player?
19:33 Subtopic: Player ID Difficulty Relative to Your Team’s Level
22:29 Subtopic – On Receiving Tips, and Identifying Who Doesn’t Have It
27:13 Subtopic: Using Pedigree
30:27 How to Recruit When you are Not at the Top of the Food Chain
34:28 Subtopic: Inviting Desired Prospects to Training
37:24 Subtopic: On Recruiting the “Most Athletic” Player
42:10 On Scouting/Recruiting from “Lower Levels”
44:13 The Uniqueness of Soccer Relative to Other Sports
49:11 On Tryouts
58:15 Have We Made Mistakes in Recruiting a Particular Player? Physical, Technical, Tactical, Psychological Hierarchy
01:03:43 How Does Pro/Rel Relate to Today’s Topic of Scouting/Recruiting

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