How Camps and Tournaments Working Together In Your Recruiting Process
When it comes to soccer recruitment, camps offer distinct advantages over tournaments. Unlike tournaments focusing primarily on competition, camps prioritize player identification and education. Through specialized training sessions, expert coaching, and individual attention, camps provide an ideal environment for players to improve their abilities and get direct feedback from coaches. The extended duration of camps allows scouts and coaches to assess players more comprehensively, observing their progress, teamwork skills, and overall potential. Camps are not the only vehicle for recruitment but a vital part of the process. Read below for more!
Top 7 Reasons Why You Also Must Include Camps In Your Recruiting Strategy And Your "Showcases Are Enough" Attitude Is Failing
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Myth: Camps are more expensive than Tournaments.
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Fact: Elite College Soccer Camps: A family's average travel cost of a 2-3 day "high type level tournament" is around $1200. When you add potential airfare with hotels, entry fees, travel time, food, and non-guaranteed exposure for a short time, the value of a tournament is far less than a targeted Elite ID Camp. At the very least, any Elite Camp carries much more value for money and time spent, but a good camp will cost you less and get you more exposure and attention.
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Elite College Soccer Camps: These are specifically designed for the focused coaches to watch players, work with the players, give YOU evaluations, and coach YOU in games.
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Tournaments With College Coaches: Coaches don't have the opportunity to give you their feedback, correct behavior, or instruct players in any way.
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Elite College Soccer Camps: Guaranteed set of hours that coaches are watching you play, train, and compete.
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Tournaments With College Coaches: You hope a coach saw you play, and if he/she did, you hope they saw you in the correct position when you did something well for a few minutes on the sideline.
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Elite College Soccer Camps: Coaches must give feedback verbally and in written form, thus facilitating interaction and focus on you.
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Tournaments With College Coaches: You hope that the college coaches weren't sitting on the sideline checking their phones, or talking to their friends on the sideline. And that they were there when you were in the game!
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Elite College Soccer Camps: Allow you to showcase your versatility for longer. You can play different positions, ask for feedback, and play games with the coach, seeing you not just in one position that your club coach assigns you but instead the one you want to play and that the college coach thinks you have good attributes for.
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Tournaments With College Coaches: If you had to play a different position for whatever reason, you were viewed and seen in that position only. Or if the game called for your team to be more defensive or your team wasn't playing great, your chances and evaluations are affected.
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Elite College Soccer Camps: You get 1 on 1 feedback with a coach at the end of the session. You also get a small group interaction and a chance to ask coaches questions.
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Tournaments With College Coaches: Coaches don't tell you anything or even let you know if they're interested.
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Elite College Soccer Camps: We include a parent Zoom so you know what you should and should not do in the recruiting process.
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Tournaments With College Coaches: You are left in the dark before, during, and after the process. While there are many other reasons, soccer tournaments can also be a platform to showcase talent, and they are typically more focused on the competitive aspect of the game rather than player evaluation and recruitment. Attending ID camps and participating in tournaments can provide a more targeted approach to college recruitment, increasing the likelihood of getting noticed by college coaches and scouts.