 On this channel, I have interviewed professional players, I've interviewed player agents, and they've given their best tips on how to become a pro. In today's video, I want to summarize those ideas and give you some action steps so you can start moving in the right direction towards achieving that goal of becoming a professional player. Before we jump into these tips, I need to start by saying being good enough to play professional, having the skills, the ability, and the talent to play at that high level doesn't mean anything if you don't act on it. People always ask me, why aren't you a professional? You seem like you're good enough to play pro, why didn't you make it? The truth is I did not act on it, I didn't know what to do and I wasn't as motivated at those young years where it's so important. So understand, you may be good enough right now, but no one's going to knock on your door and give you a contract just because you're good enough. You have to go and find your opportunity. I will send the better-in-one-day soccer blueprint to anyone who comments hashtag soccer on this video. The younger you can start chasing this dream, the better. The best thing you can do is get yourself into a youth academy. So they're taking players as young as nine years old, getting them into professional academies. And yes, the country you live in will have a massive impact on how easy or hard it is for you to make it professionally. So if you live in a country with a great football culture, they have a professional league, they have youth academies. Get yourself into those youth academies as soon as possible. It will make your life so much easier as far as chasing this dream. Now, if you don't have that luxury, you live in a country that doesn't have a good football culture. Maybe there isn't good professional academies. You have to work with what you have. If there isn't a professional academy, maybe linked to some club, I know there's Arsenal, Manchester United, Barcelona academies, not the real one in Spain or in England, but there are academies in different countries. Get into those academies. If your city or your country doesn't have those luxuries, work with what you have. Get into the best team that you possibly can. Get into the highest level academy that is available to you. So start young and get yourself in the best environment that will give you those opportunities and the chances to get the best coaching possible to make you the best player that you can possibly be. Second thing you need to do is start building that resume and building that highlight video every single year. Get as much footage as you can and make it better and better each year because you're going to use this. You're going to use this to contact agents, to contact clubs, and to show people that you're actually a real player. If you're making this effort, you're trying to gain exposure, you're trying to connect with people and you have no resume. You have no proof of experience. You have no proof of your skills, no match footage. No one is going to take you seriously. The next thing you want to do as soon as 16 years old is start searching for a reliable agent. Agents have connections. Agents are credible and clubs trust agents because they have a track record of bringing high quality players to their club. If you're trying to contact clubs on your own behalf and again, you don't have a good resume, you don't have a good match footage video and you have no experience, they're not likely to take you seriously. But if you have an agent contacting clubs on your behalf and that agent has experience, he is credible, he has credentials, they're going to give you a better look. So how do you find an agent? Well, I made a video in the past where I actually interviewed an agent and we talked about the best way to find and also contact an agent because a lot of players make mistakes when contacting agents and agents just end up not taking them seriously. So I recommend you watch that video. I'll put a link in the description below. While you're working on finding that agent, I still want you to contact clubs on your own behalf. Be your own agent. Now, as I said, this isn't the best method. It's going to be very difficult, especially if you don't have a good resume or good player video. No one's going to take you seriously if you don't have those two things. But you can get responses. I've used this method in the past when I was trying to build connections and see if this was possible and I did get responses from clubs. I had to contact a lot of clubs. However, some people did email me back and tell me about open tryouts and give me opportunities to come and train with the team. So you can do this and I recommend you start by making a list of all the potential clubs you would like to trial for in your area. Don't start contacting Matt Jess United and looking for clubs in Europe when you live in the United States. Focus on your area. Make a list of all the different leagues. Remember, there's tons of levels of professional football and you're not going to make it by aiming for the Premier League when you have no experience yet, okay? So you would probably need to start at that lowest professional level and work your way up, saying that you can still contact higher-level professional clubs. However, it's going to be more difficult to get the response. But in the meantime, I want you to think about being your own agent, making that list of potential teams and start contacting them with your player video and your resume in a short but sweet email. Throughout your... If you want to improve faster and achieve more this season, use the Soccer Success Planner. It's 100% free. Players all around the world have already used it to improve. You can download it right now. There's a link in the description below. For the whole football career, you want to be gaining as much exposure as possible. You want to get as many eyes on you as possible. So how do you do this? Well, number one, you need to be playing at the highest level available to you. So if you're just playing with your buddies and a low-level team in your local city and you think you're good enough and you're expecting someone to come find you and give you a contract, it's never going to happen. You need to be getting on the highest-level team, playing in the best league available to you. So whether that's playing U-16, Tier 1, or maybe you make it onto a provincial or a regional team, or maybe even a national level, now you're starting to get more exposure. Now you're starting to get more eyes on you. Maybe you're going to showcase tournaments with your youth team, playing at a college or university level where now there's actually people who are taking a closer look. Scouts, agents, coaches of higher-level teams, and they're actually looking for high-quality players. So if you're not at the highest level, you're probably not going to get much exposure. Once you're old enough, you can also start going to open tryouts and combines where they actually have coaches from professional teams come and watch a group of 20 players train for a couple of days. Now these aren't the best solutions, but they are solutions and they are opportunities and people do get professional contracts using these methods. One of the best things you can do if you're serious about making this is move to the football. And what I mean by that is move to a country where professional football is a thing. There's good youth system, there's lots of levels of professional football, and there's a good chance of you making it. Now saying that, you need to take your passports and your nationality into consideration because these do play a major part. If you do not have a European passport and you're trying to make it in a European country and you're coming from the United States, North America or Africa or whatever it is and you don't have an agent, you don't have any contacts and you're trying to make it without a passport, it's going to be very difficult because they can just take a player of the same quality who has a European passport and it costs much less money and much less effort for them to get you involved with the club. So think about your nationality. What are your parents' nationalities? What passports do you possess? These are good countries to move towards if they have a good football culture and take a chance. I have a bunch of friends who have done it like that. Instead of waiting for someone to come and find them, they just went to the football. They went and visited their friend who played professionally in Finland or in Germany and they asked to try with the team and they got an opportunity and the team ended up taking them, okay? So if you want this thing to happen, that's the biggest piece of advice I can give you. You cannot wait for it to come to you because it's not. You have to go and get it. You have to take these action steps and you have to put yourself in the environment where this is going to actually become a possibility. If you don't know about me, I used to be a huge underachiever but through obsessive self-improvement, I found my success. Earned a college scholarship, played for my national football team, a YouTube channel with over 100 million views. I've helped players worldwide and I'd love to help you improve faster and achieve more. From moving up divisions to making national teams, players who use the Online Soccer Academy get results. Access elite level coaching and training become a complete player. Make a difference on the field and get noticed when you play. Limited spots available. Apply today. Start improving tomorrow. Link in the description below.