 Good morning peoples on YouTube, mateys, mates, lads, quick question. I can never figure this out, if you're from the UK you might know, is there a female word for lads? If you know, comment that down below because I have no idea. By the time this vlog comes out, we'll have hit 4,000 subscribers which is mental. So that's pretty freaking sweet, so for today I'm gonna go get some breakfast with the family and then later on we're gonna go watch a girl's soccer game at the old high school where I used to play and maybe do a little bit of scouting. I'll also walk you guys through what I look for in a player when I'm scouting them, so you guys can know kind of what college coaches are looking for when they watch you play a live game. So yeah, so let's go. So I'm here at the game now and we're watching some of the girls play from my old high school. It's really cold, it's windy but it's a good opportunity to scout and after the game when I head back home I'll kind of run you guys through what I look for when I'm scouting but for now we're just gonna kind of watch, enjoy the game and see what happens. So I'm back at the house and it was cold, it was wet, it was rainy. I felt like I was watching Stoke play against Stoke at Stoke on a Tuesday night but it was a good chance to scout and I wanted to sit down with you guys and just walk you through what I look for when I'm scouting players, kind of what goes on in my head just so you guys have the perspective of what college coaches are looking for when they go and actually watch players play in live matches. So before anything else the first thing I think about is the needs of my program. So I'm looking at what players I'm graduating, how many players I'm graduating and what positions I'm going to be needing for the years after that. On top of that I'm also looking at the system of play or the style of play that we have or that we're trying to incorporate in the near future so for example if we want to play a more counter attacking style I'm going to need some wingers who are very very fast. If we're going to play a more possession-based style I'm going to need a center mid who is able to keep the ball who's able to play well under pressure and who's able to slow the game down just a little bit. So those are some of the things that I'm looking at before I even start scouting players. Now after that when I'm actually looking at the players there's a lot of different things that I look for but there's three things that I feel are the most important and I've talked to a few other college coaches and they all had some very similar thoughts so I'll list them from least important to most important. So number three technical ability so what we're looking at is are they good with both feet can they control the ball quickly are their passes accurate are they comfortable in tight spaces so basically I'm looking at how good their technical ability is. Number two we're looking at their personality so when I talk about personality I mean are they a leader on the field are they communicating well with their teammates are they one of the players on the field that communicates the most are they yelling at their teammates when they're losing or when they make a bad pass or a bad play or are they pushing their teammates to get better with them also how do they react after going down a goal or how do they react after going up a goal. If it's a possession-based player how do they react and how do they adapt to the environment when the other team has more possession so this is just more their personality and I'm looking at that as the game goes on I'm looking at their demeanor their body language so I feel like that's one of the most important parts because it's just how they react to the obstacles that present themselves during the game. The most important for me number one is decision making soccer football is a game of decisions if you make good decisions you're going to be a good player if you make bad decisions you're going to be a bad player so I'm not necessarily looking at how many goals they score or how many assists they get as much as I'm looking at did they make the right decision in that play if you look at some of the best soccer players in the world take Chavi and Iniesta for example those guys aren't the strongest they're not the fastest but they're the smartest so those are the kind of players I'm looking for so what I've done is I've selected a few clips from the game I've recorded a few clips and I want to walk you through each clip to show you how I would analyze a player's decision making what decisions they made and how that affects my judgment to bring them into my program or not so let's get straight into it so in the first situation we're looking at the white center back so without scouting the white center back I'm looking at one of the decisions that she's made here so she gets the ball she forces a pass into one of her center mids the center mid ends up losing the ball she's under pressure in my opinion the center back could have switched to play played it maybe to the other center back or played it all the way to the other outside back where there's open space and then they would have been able to play through there so that's one decision that I'm looking at and I'm saying with lots of time and space did this defender make the best decision so for the next scenario we're looking at the center back from the red team so she does well she intercepts the ball and one of the good decisions that she makes is she dribbles forward and she takes her space she realizes that there's no defenders occupying that space so she dribbles up what worries me is that she has time and space again just like the other center back and she plays a ball in behind and she fails to realize that the opposing defender on the white team that outside back has covered the space not allowing the winger to run to run into the space so for me a much simpler option would have been to just play the winger at her feet connect the pass and then slowly move up instead of trying to force a ball in behind when the opposition has already set in the third scenario this is one that I see very often and it's very frustrating for me the ball's up in the air it's coming to the center back and the center back clears it off of her first touch there's really no defenders pressuring her to the point where she needs to clear it off of her first touch all she needs to do is look up take a touch and maybe play a simple pass to her outside back so this worries me because if my team is trying to build out of the back and I'm looking at a center back that's clearing the ball right away when there's no pressure on her we're not going to be able to build out of the back very effectively so that goes into my decision making whether I'm bringing her in or whether I bring another center back who's a little bit more composed with the ball so in the fourth scenario I'm looking at the center mid from the white team she receives the ball and this is actually a good decision that she makes so she receives the ball she gets into a good passing lane she realizes that she cannot turn and go forward she holds off the defender well and she keeps possession for the white team now they're able to build out through the other side and again they maintain possession so this is a good decision because I need my center midfielders to be very very aware of what's around them so the next one is kind of the opposite of the last situation that we just saw so now we're looking at the center mid from the red team she gets played the ball but my issue with this is that she actually has time and space to turn but since she never checks her shoulder she forces the ball backwards the red team keeps the ball for a little bit but that's not what worries me what worries me is that I need my center mids to be very very aware of what's around them at all times so she's since she's never checked her shoulder she doesn't know that she can actually turn and dribble into the space and now we have an opportunity to go forward she plays the ball back and it doesn't really give us an advantage so I'm all about keeping possession and playing it simple but I do want a center mid who takes the risk because they know that the risk every once in a while is going to pay off and for the last situation we're looking at the center back from the red team but more specifically the outside back from the red team so the player from the white team gets the ball out wide she actually has enough time to look up dribbles forward just a little bit and she ends up playing the ball in behind the outside back to one of the white players that's making a run in behind so so if I'm looking for a center back I'm looking for a player who can communicate effectively and is one of the best communicators out on the field and I'm also looking for someone who can direct their back line as well as the players in front of them so that they can move all as a unit so in this case the white player is making a run but the center back never alerts the outside back to check her shoulder or to pick her up so the player has a free run in behind where she receives the ball if I'm looking at the outside back what worries me is that she's stuck in the middle of nowhere she's disconnected from her line because she's not sure whether to cover the space or whether to eventually go help her teammate out and make it a 2v1 situation so she got to get stuck in the middle leaving a gap for the white player to run into so my worry is if I'm looking at an outside back I need to make sure that they're disciplined and they can stay connected to the back line so this raises a red flag for me because if I'm playing against the team that's very good and has a lot of off the ball movement I need my back line to be very very disciplined so those are all the scenarios guys I kind of wanted to just walk you through exactly what goes into my mind and most importantly how I analyze the decisions that these players make so when I go back to my coaching staff and I talked to them about some of the players that I saw I'm gonna tell them technical ability was there two is their personality was good they were always motivated they were pushing their teammates they were a leader out on the field and those are the kind of players we're always looking for and three their decision-making process was good they made a lot more positive decisions than they did negative decisions and that's what's really going to tell me this is a player that we want to bring in so I hope you guys like that sorry if I talked a lot um but I kind of wanted to just walk you through all of that as far as the giveaway I will do a giveaway I saw the feedback that you guys gave me and I thought it was great but I'm gonna wait just a little bit we're probably gonna do the giveaway when we have 5000 subscribers so we just hit 4000 hopefully it should be somewhere around a month which means it'll give you guys enough time to prepare I'm not gonna release the details just yet because I want to make sure I have everything planned well and it's solid in my head exactly how we're gonna do it but there will be a giveaway I'll be giving away two shirts stay tuned I will be doing a lot more soccer related videos like this I hope you guys like it if you do make sure you hit the like button make sure you comment that down below so you guys let me know what you liked about the video and if you haven't subscribed make sure you subscribe so stay tuned and I'll see you guys next time