 Hi, my name is Cody Roberto. I'm a Canadian Plain Soccer in Italy and I've played for Bastia, Brescia, Olgi Ventese, Montecari, Porto Peralo, Porto Torres, to name a few. So, basically, today I'm just going to talk to you a little bit about my story and talk to you about the difference between the people who make it and the people who don't, right? I still have a long way to go with my career. I'm not where I want to be. I've been working every day to get there, but hopefully I have some information that could help you along your journey. So, yeah, my story starts like this. I grew up in Canada. I played soccer there all the way up until I was 18 years old. I was talking to a few agents in Germany and Italy. I was around the time where I was finishing high school and unfortunately none of those connections came through. So, I ended up taking all the money I had. I took it out alone for $10,000 as well and I signed up for an academy in Italy. And from there, I made sure I was the hardest-working guy. I trained like an animal that whole year and eventually people started to take notice and agents saw me and he brought me on a trial with the team. It went well and it kind of just went from there. So, yeah, obviously there was a lot more to my story than that. I had so many highs, so many lows, but I'll keep it short. So, yeah. Anyways, Dylan sent me a message. He was asking me to talk a little bit about the difference between people who make it and the people who don't. So, honestly, I'm going to split this up into two areas. But one thing is, are you actually good enough to be a professional player? Right? You might not be right now, but that doesn't mean you can't be. So, I think the difference between the people who make it and the people who don't is the people who make it have an ability to look at themselves and see all of their weaknesses, all of their strengths and get a full picture of themselves as a player, right? All the different aspects of their game where they're at. And every single day they work to improve those weaknesses, right? They also work to improve their strengths. For someone who's fast, always work to get faster. If your touch on the ball isn't great, you need to be training that every single day. It may be twice if so. Just being able to analyze yourself and your game and every day focus on getting better so that you're at the level where you can play professional soccer. So, that's one part of it. The other part is everything off the field, right? This is the part you might not have heard a lot about. But in the beginning, you have to be your own agent. You have to be that calling everybody, calling teams, calling agents, sending out videos, talking to team directors and just going to open crowds and trying to create as many opportunities for you to get scouted as possible, right? Every single day, just be on the phone, just trying to get your name out there and get people interested. That's just as important, if not more important than the actual stuff on the field. It's crazy, I know. But unfortunately, that's how it goes. So, yeah, I'm going to talk to you about one other thing which, honestly, I think this is more important than everything else is how much you're willing to sacrifice, right? The people who make it are willing to sacrifice a lot more than those who aren't. And when I talk about sacrifice, you're probably thinking, okay, when your friends call you to out, you say no, and then you stay in and train and practice soccer, right? That's part of it. But that's one tenth of the sacrifice that you need, right? When I talk about sacrifice, I'm talking about, are you willing, if you have 50 bucks in your pocket and you're who knows where, away from your family, away from your friends, and a team calls you to go for a trial and the train just to get there is 50 bucks. Are you willing to spend that money to get to that city and go for this trial? Even though you know that if it doesn't go well, you might end up sleeping in front of the train station. You might end up not eating the next two days. Are you willing to do that, to put yourself in those situations and just do whatever it takes to make it happen and to get trials and to create opportunities for yourself, right? Yeah, sacrifice, sacrificing, not just once, not just twice, but sacrificing day after day, month after month, year after year. Like there's been times right now, I'm in Europe. I'm just in my hotel room in Italy, but there's been times where I've had 50 euros in my pocket and I've spent it to go to some random city for a trial and I've slept in front of train stations. I've gone days without eating and I've been willing to put myself in those situations to give myself that opportunity. Yeah, so just be willing to sacrifice more than everybody else and have the have the strength and have the endurance to keep doing that again. I'm to St. Ricketts, Ford for the Canadian men's national team. I also play club at Bullisport FC and I started my career playing in university. I went to the University of Green Bay, Wisconsin, fight in Phoenix. I did four years there. From there, I went to Finland where I signed my first professional contract at Milikoskin Paolo, Moipa, 47, played two years there. From there, I got transferred to Romania, Polytechnica, Timishuada. And from there, I went to Norway where I played at Valoranga and Sadness Ulf. And from Sadness Ulf, I went to Turkey where I played at Bugelspor. From Bugelspor, I went to Israel where I played at HaPuel Haifa. And now I'm back in Turkey playing for Bullisport FC. So that's been my journey as professional football player. And from there, it brings me to where I am now, just starting the season in Bullisport and just started the World Cup Qualifier campaign with the men's Canadian national team, which is exciting and it's a big year for us, so we have something to prove. But basically Dylan wanted to speak shortly about what it takes to be a professional and the steps I took to get there. I wouldn't say it was the easiest route or the most desired route a football player would like to take, but it's the route that was best for me and it's a route that I had to take. I never stopped working. I always wanted to be the fittest. I've always wanted to work the hardest and I always wanted to show that I had the character and the professionalism to pursue this career and pursue this profession. So that has been something that has been with me from the start. And basically every team I go to, there's no doubt performance wise. The feedback is that I'm always professional and that's a main thing. And being professional in the environment, you know, just dealing with coaches, you know, not breaking the rules and most of all working hard day in and day out. So basically those are the main things I believe it takes to become a professional and obviously talent as well. So yeah, that is basically what I think it takes to become a professional. And the last question is, hold on, let me check. Last question is, what's the difference between players who make it and players who don't? And one thing I've noticed growing up, you will not always be the best player at that time, but that doesn't mean you don't, you have a less chance becoming a professional or less chance of making it in this profession. I've grown up with players that I've thought were leaps and bounds ahead of me in terms of talent. But obviously that can get to a player's head, whereas once they see the success early, sometimes they feel they don't have to work as hard. And I think that's the main thing, no matter if you're the best player or the worst player, you've got to continue working hard. And if you're not able to or not willing to put in that work day in and day out, I think sometimes you can fall short of becoming a professional. Not and also not only that, I think mentality is a big thing. You have to be willing to sacrifice a lot of things to become a professional. I left the first time at the age of 18. And from then, I've been out of Canada the majority of the time. I've been away from my family the majority of the time. I'm in countries where the language is not English, so I have to adapt and find a way to communicate. And it's not always the easiest conditions and some players may not be able to handle that and may break under those conditions. But me personally, I thrive in the tough conditions and the tough environments. And I think that's the main difference between players who make it and players who don't. Mentality, sacrifice and commitment. My name is William Oluarimi John. I'm a professional soccer player. I have technically played professional soccer on four continents. And now I play in Europe for ropes in the Finnish Super League. We're going to talk a little bit about how to become a professional soccer player. More specifically, this is not going to be a video about how hard you need to work, what you need to eat, when you need to work out and all those things. Okay, if you don't know already that you need to work hard in order to become a professional athlete, then you've already lost. This video is for people who are outside of the market. I mean, of any age, of any age, okay, and regardless of your country. Okay, things will change depending on what country you're in, but I'm going to try and give you some guidelines that way you have an understanding of what you can do. First things first, let's talk about what you will find if you do a search on how to become a professional soccer player. Something you're going to come across are open tryouts, combines, maybe some of these European tours where they will take you with a possible chance to play in front of some coaches from some European teams. There's no guarantee that you will get a contract out of these. We're going to be spending a lot of money and your time on transportation, food, and certain fees that they will make you pay. These are, in my opinion, not the best way to go about it. It's actually probably the worst way to go about it because everyone has an opportunity to get these, and they're not exclusive in any way, and there's no guarantee that the coach even has to look at you at all. I also googled the cost for some open tryouts in the MLS, and Seattle Sounders is $150, LA Galaxy is $175, and my hometown club is Sporty Kansas City. They charge $258, and they top out at about 200 people for tryouts. That's $258 times 200 people. That's about $51,600, which they've made in two days. It makes perfect sense for them. They already have the field. They're not going to pay for your food. They're not paying for your hotel if you're coming from outside. There's no guarantee that they have to give anyone a contract at all whatsoever. It makes sense for them. You need to understand that clubs have their own channels and their own ways of getting players, and this is not the best way for them to do that. If you have the money to do this, by all means, go for it, but there's a better way, and I'm going to explain that a little bit later. Let's say you want to just contact a club yourself and tell them you're the player that they need to win the championship. Let's just have a look at what DC United's policy is because they do not have open tryouts, and if you go to their website, you can read, the first team does not hold open tryouts, but does invite players for trials. Inviting a player for trial is extremely rare, and usually only after the team has scouted a player with their current professional team, which means you're not getting in because you're not a professional. Unsolicited requests for a tryout are not accepted. Please do not call asking for a tryout. An individual that would like to make their abilities known to DC United's first team should forward a copy of their resume and DVD. Materials submitted will not be returned. If the first team is interested, they will contact you, and in bold, please do not call us or send a message inquiring about the status of the materials you submitted, okay? So if you're curious as to what's happening to your DVD when DC United gets it, now I could be wrong. I could be completely wrong. They could have an intern there sitting down and watching every minute of every DVD in order to check and see if they haven't missed something, but I highly doubt it. Yeah, those options are out. You're gonna need an agent. The reason for this is that an agent is in the system already. He knows coaches, he knows scouts, he has other players who are hopefully in some of these teams that you want to be on. Don't get confused. Agents are very much in this to make money. As much as it is many players dream to become a professional. They don't necessarily share that dream for you, especially if they think they might have to work very hard. It becomes a little tricky and if you're a parent and you have a kid who aspires to be a professional, then I'm gonna try and give you at least an idea of how to make this work for you. So some rules. Never send money to an agent ever on any condition. There are no agency fees. The only time you need to be sending an agent money is after he's gotten you your first contract and you guys are talking about 10%, 15%, whatever it is before that never send agent any money ever. Secondly, agents are at the beginning not your friend, okay? They will tell you anything so you need to do your own research on the agent. If you Google FIFA player agents, alright, you're gonna find a list of agents that have passed some tests and licensing. They have recognition by the by the Federation. Make your videos as professional looking as possible, okay? Because if they click on the YouTube link and they can't tell which player you are and they can't see it very well, they're just not gonna look. It's very important, okay? Because they have plenty of players to choose from and if you don't make it easy for them, why should they care? You're also gonna need a CV or a resume and you want to keep this as simple as possible, okay? Your name, your age, where you're from, which passports you hold, okay? What position you play, your dominant foot, alright? And when you're listing which teams you play for or have played for, you want to put your statistics there, your goals, games played and hopefully that gets you an idea of how to get started. I'll definitely make another video about the other things that you're gonna run into. This should be enough to keep you away from wasting your money and wasting your time and getting you a chance to just get out on the field and do what you love. My name is Ilyan. I'm from Bulgaria. I'm 19 years old. I'm a pro football player. I play in Bulgaria. I set a big team called Locomotive Sofia and I started my career at seven years old. It was strange because my father has sent me at the club. At that time I was just playing, you know, street style on the street with friends. I didn't expect this. So I started my career in First Division team in Bulgaria called Lesky Sofia actually. It's one of the one of the best teams here in Bulgaria with most, it's like I'm playing like history and everything. So I started my career there, you know, I was playing for fun when you were young. You play just for the love of the game. And after every year by passing, passing, I started, you know, like having something from this habits, you know, going every day on training, I started liking it. I was feeling myself in, I was like, this is my thing. So one day I was 12 years old. I started watching your videos and I'm like, it was all about the dreams that your aims, your goals, what you want to do with football because I'm like, okay, what do you want to do? I'm like, I want to become a professional soccer player. So I was watching your videos. Thanks God, they helped me a lot. I made my goals. I made my aims. I was like, how I'm going to achieve them from for what time I'm going to achieve them. And okay, let's start. So I started working like I was like, doing everything professional training two times a day, eating started eating healthy. Most important, starting thinking, changing mindset mindset like a professional football player, because without this, you're not going anywhere. And after this, you know, I had a massive improvement in my game. I swear, if I was 20% a player from these things, I improved myself until 80%. I still have to improve. So with these things, with these trainings and changing my mindset, I started like, having a successful, successful time in the club. I was still there in Lesky, so I started scoring a lot of goals, started doing the things which I want to improve my technique, my cross, my speed, my physique and everything. So I started playing very well. I was scouted in with the first team to train. And then, you know, guys are coming to watch the game scouts. And I was voted for the national team of Bulgaria. The first one was under 14. So I went there, you know, it's to play for your country's above everything. So I didn't expect this, you know, to play for my country. And I was so proud, you know, just I never, I never was thinking about this for my national team. And okay, I was like, look, when you work hard, the things are, they're paying. I, before I wasn't, I wasn't believing in this, but it's actually, it's like this, because the job, our job for the players is like, it's like a person. The more you give to the person, you're going to give you back. It's like, it's a positivity thing. So season by season, I was playing very well. I was trained with the first team, supported by national team. And 2015, we had a Europe Championship under 17, the finals. Yeah, so we're in group with Spain, Russia, and Austria, and Bulgaria. Bulgaria under 17. So first game we played against Croatia, second against Spain, third against Austria. So I played all games. I was like, I had a main position in the team. I was playing number, number 10, but we didn't qualify for the finals. But it was a fucking, it's from the language. It was, it was, it was a unbelievable experience. As you can tell by the, the sudden swearing, it's passion, man, coming through. Yes, yes, you know, one day you play in front of 100 people. And after three years you play against, you see 11,000. You never, you never think you're going to see something like this, but you know, I was, I went to warm up. And like every game I'm used to, you know, not everybody came. You see some five, six people drinking coffee. And I went out to warm up. You see, oh my God, 11,000 people. I'm like, what is, what is this? And this is the, you feel, you feel the profession, if you're the football, you feel the, how great is the game, how, how much you love it and more things about it. So after the, the Europe Championship, I was supported by Italian clubs, which I went in Avellino, actually it's Serie B team, which is making second division actually, Serie B. And I went there after nine years with Leski Sofia. I went there. I was the age 16 and a half, 16 and a half. I went, uh, I had a day which I was, I should have decided or stay here in Bulgaria or go for my dreams in Europe. So I decided, I don't care. And I know it's going to be hard. I know, but I need these sacrifices. Like you said in your videos. So I'm like, I went there. I was playing for the Primavera. It's actually under 19 in Italian way, they say Primavera. I was playing for one year over the me. And we're playing the championship with things like Roma, Lazio, Napoli. And how can I say it is amazing experience. I was there. I was, I was waiting just a little bit, like two three months for my documents. It was a hard time, but, but you know, we can, you can use the time for your, for your good every day, every second. So I decided to train hard, even without the rest day. So the documents came finally. And I started playing very well. My first game was against Empoli and down very well. I finished two, two, I made the assist and like this step by step, against the good teams, Roma, Lazio and others. I was supported by a body, which is against stadium B team, which is okay, more history, more emblematic, let's say it like this. Yes. And I was supported by them. They wanted me to go there to have like a plan, even for the first team to integrate step by step. So in the summer, I went there. In 2016, I went there in summer. I was 17 and a half years old. I done the preseason. Everything was going perfect. I don't know what it was like.