Being Posted Does Not Mean Your Kid Is Going Pro
Your kid gets featured on a highlight page. The clip does well. The comments say Europe. For a few days it feels like something has changed.
David Rodriguez founded Footy Access, a youth soccer media and exposure platform, and when we asked him what parents think gets noticed that does not matter as much, his answer was the thing he does for a living. "It doesn't mean that you're gonna go pro if you're posted, or that it means that you should be going to Europe." A feature can help a player get recruited. It should not, in his words, skyrocket your expectations. He sees families start treating the comment section as reality.
Should My Kid Have a Soccer Highlight Account?
Rodriguez does not think a great player needs one. "If you're a great player, I wouldn't stress too much about what you're posting on social media." He knows a family whose player shut social media off entirely, probably had no posts, and is now starting in MLS. Can a video help? He says yes, in a small way: "It's just three more people that wouldn't have seen it." That is the honest size of the effect.
He also draws a line on age. His platform does not cover players before roughly U14 or U15, when national team ID camps begin, because before that "it's not fair to the player to start bringing exposure and ranking them." They are not developed enough for anyone serious to be evaluating them yet, so a ranking at nine is a number with nothing behind it.
Jonny Shore, who signed with NYCFC at 15 and is now in the first team at 19, sees the other side of the same screen. Everyone on social media, he says, posts "the highest of the highs," and "they don't show anything else." Kids and parents get caught up in it. His advice is the plainest thing in the episode: "Don't judge your progress off someone else's."
What parents can do
Treat a feature as three more viewers, not a signal about the future
Keep your kid off ranking and exposure pages before U14
Never measure your child's season against someone else's post
Adapted from Episode 31. Youth Soccer Exposure: What Parents Misunderstand (David Rodriguez of Footy Access) and Episode 40. A Pro Soccer Offer at 15. A Family Decision (Jonny Shore).
Watch the Shore episode: https://youtu.be/ym9Vjac3wOs