How to increase chances to get into Pro football

It is no secret that players around the world have different chances to break into pro level football depending on their country of origin/location, budget and skills.

Specifically, if the player is born/located, let say, in the EU country with a number of local football clubs and academies, he can join one of them and progress within the traditional path - from youth level to the first team (if he is good enough). FC Ajax (Netherlands), FC Zagreb (Croatia), FC Brugge (Belgium) are explicit examples of local clubs with pro youth academies, with a developed network of coaches, scouts and farm-clubs. Even if the player is discharged during his transition from one U-team to another (U12->U14) due to poor results, he still can try another local youth academy or pro club (e.g. from Ajax academy to FC Feyenoord academy).

That being said, such a player has more opportunities in front of him because he has trained within the professional youth football academy from early ages OR lives within the close proximity of other academies. What more important, an outside player will almost never be able to enroll into such an academy. I mean, Ajax scouts only youth players within 20-50 km around Amsterdam, FC Bayern academy within 200 km around Munich and etc.

On the other hand, let's say, there is a player who a) lives outside the EU or main football hubs, OR b) do not have a local pro football club and related youth academy around; OR c) has been discharged from a local pro academy but still has ambitions to get into pro football. Unfortunately, they will less likely achieve Pro level. Because their chances to get a high quality football training, competitve games and consiquently get noticed (by scouts, other coaches, etc.) are significantly lower.

As one can imagine, the number of players of the second category is large. That is why different independent soccer academies operate all over the world. They trial and accept ambitious players who still want to break into Pro football. They train and organize special football trials for their students and increase chances to get noticed. The only issue, they are not free of charge (as it is the case in most locally based academies working under the pro club umbrellas). Prices vary from low 10, 000 USD up to 80 000 USD.

We, at Sportlane (https://sportlane.com) partner and present the best high-performance soccer academies all over the world. The player or their parents can review different academies' programs on our platform, be it long-term soccer academies, or short-term soccer camps.

Our team has international sports lawyers, sports managers and ex-scouts, that is why we can vet only high-quality academies, partner with them and offer the best prices on the market (cheaper than booking directly). We also provide legal support to those players who registers at such academies through us (e.g. due diligence of the contract). If you have any questions, you can reach out to us directly or post here. Cheers. Peter.

 

The abovementioned applies to the US young players even more. First, not many MLS clubs have academies, though its number is growing. That being said, kids are to be trained in local football schools.

One of the examples, GPS franchise which went bust this year as it could not survive the COVID-19 lockdowns. We had partnership relationships with them as well (as they had a couple of academies), and we know how bad things became for them during pandemics. I am driving at the point, that in the USA there are still only a few high-quality academies. US Soccer Academy is one of them and almost all US national team players come from it.

This is the very reason, why independent soccer academies in Europe and the USA may be a good choice for US kids (given, they can afford it). As they will be able to improve significantly, will have chances to get noticed by European clubs, and at least, be better prepared for US pro soccer (e.g. get a US university scholarship with a good soccer team; or go to the US team directly).