4 Keys to Creating a Stellar Highlight Video

4 Keys to Creating a Stellar Highlight Video

Sending a highlight video can be one of the best ways to market yourself to a college coach. If your highlight video is compelling enough, it’ll make him want to see you play in person. When creating your tape, it’s important to keep this in the back of your mind: There are hundreds of other players sending their highlight tapes to that very same college coach. So how do you get noticed? Differentiate yourself by creating a video that paints the best picture of your talent level and true potential.

Here are four keys to keep in mind before you get to work:

1. Avoid distracting music. Many players make the mistake of adding music that contains loud beats in order to grab the coaches attention. In reality, coaches find this distracting & unnecessary. College coaches want to get right down to business, so be sure to mind your music… and ditch the graphics.

2. Consider the level of competition that you’re playing against. Choose the highlights from games against the best teams. Coaches want to be able to gauge the level of talent that you’re playing against. If you have clips from JV games or against poor competition, it’s not going to be convincing.

3. Include a variety of clips – As a midfielder it’s important to showcase your ability to play offense in a half field set, move the ball in transition, play defense, and pick up ground balls. As an attackman it’s important to show that you can score goals, break down your defensemen off the dodge, and ride hard. Coaches want you to be multi-faceted. Defensively, athleticism is certainly key, as well as lateral movement. Can you keep up with a shifty attackman? Can you be physical at goal line extended? Can you play team defense and slide? Can you run in transition? The more versatile you are as a player, the more attractive you are to a coach.

4. How long should your highlight tape be? 3-5 minutes is the sweet spot. Once you exceed that, you’re probably starting to get repetitive with your content.

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