How to Create Great Soccer Highlight Videos for College Recruiting and More
Part 2 of how game highlight videos can help your youth athlete get ahead
Here, we’ll tell you our last (but definitely not least) two reasons why soccer game highlight videos are a great tool to help your child advance in their soccer career. And, we’ll tell you how to make a great video, with top tips from college and pro coaches.
This blog continues PART 1 OF THIS SERIES, about using soccer videos to play better and reach elite level teams.
MORE top REASONS TO CREATE soccer highlight reels:
Reason Five: College Recruiting Portfolios
As your youth athlete reaches high school, it’s time to get a head start on their college recruiting portfolio. (If they plan to keep playing competitively in college, of course!)
Yes, there are far fewer NCAA scholarships for soccer than for basketball or American football. But getting recruited for any sport confers another big advantage: a huge admissions boost at elite colleges.
A 2019 study of Harvard admissions data, for example, showed that recruited athletes were admitted at a rate of 86%, compared to just 5.5% for other applicants. An earlier 2002 study of 30 selective colleges by a former Princeton president, also showed recruited athletes had a 48% higher chance of admission.
When Recruiting Starts
There are many rules governing college sports recruiting, but in a nutshell, your child can start reaching out to college coaches their junior year of high school, or even at the end of the sophomore year. However, the coaches are not allowed to respond until after July 1, in the summer after their junior year.
During sophomore and junior year, videos are of utmost importance. While coaches can’t respond to athletes’ emails during junior year, if they see something they like in a player’s video reel, they may show up to watch part of one of their games, or at least have them on their radar.
How to Create a Great Highlight Video:
For college recruiting, your child should prepare a top quality highlight portfolio of about 2-4 minutes, with their best clips from sophomore and junior year, showing the best skills for their position.
(For younger players’ highlight reels, the same guidelines apply—keep it short, yet varied.)
Some Top tips FOR YOUTH PLAYERS EDITING THEIR VIDEOS:
MARK YOURSELF IN THE VIDEO
Make sure you show who you are in the video with a quick arrow or circle.
Show as wide a variety of skills as you can
Especially showcase any creative moves or impressive thinking on the field. This will help you stand out. There are many videos with nice goals, but how many show a defender having the confidence to do a sideways chest pass back to their goalkeeper?
USE HIGH-LEVEL HIGHLIGHTS:
If possible, include highlights from the most competitive games you’ve played, for example a regional championship.
HAVE A CLEAN SHORT INTRO and save accolades for the video’s end:
Keep your cover image and intro very simple, with just your basic info. Some youth athletes include 20-30 accomplishments on their video cover in tiny letters to fit it all, but that’s an eye-bleed for busy coaches who get hundreds of videos a month. It’s best to add your most impressive stats and accolades at the end of the video instead. (See an example of a well-done intro and outro below 👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽.)
(Screen captures from “How to Make the Perfect Highlight Video” below.)
Your child will send their video, along with a short email with their name, graduation year, position, and soccer achievements. If your child is playing on an elite team or in a top tournament, they can also invite the coaches from their preferred universities to see them at games.
In the summer before senior year, and their senior fall semester, your child should play in the highest-level tournaments they can, and keep updating their video portfolio. They can send out new clips to coaches and keep inviting them to games. With luck and hard work, they may get recruited to a Division 1 team!
See some video tips from the experts below:
Is it Realistic to Play in College?
To keep perspective, only 1 in 71 male high school soccer players, and 1 in 37 female players, will play Division 1 soccer in college, according to the NCAA’s most recent statistics from 2022-23.
But, if we include Division 2 or 3 colleges, some of which are also highly prestigious, overall 1 in 16 male players and 1 in 12 female players can make it onto a college team. For elite high school players, their chances are even better. So, there’s a decent shot for a highly-motivated youth athlete to win a spot. Gather your videos early, have an experienced coach take a look, and send them out.
Reason Six: For the Memories
Before and beyond all the recruiting hype and pressure, there’s one more reason for saving and sharing your child’s soccer highlight videos, and we think it’s one of the most important: to save happy memories.
Whether one day they play in college, or they just enjoy soccer as a way to make friends when travelling the world, your children are likely to hold great memories of playing on their U6, U7, or U8 teams. So keep those videos on hand. In a few years they’ll be happy memory gold.
To find out more about how Centaurus FC will be using videos in the 2025-2026 season, please contact Coach Walter Altamirano.
Happy viewing and hope to see you on the field (and screen) soon!
