Along with the couple Americans that have been making noise in England for years now, including Tim Howard at Everton, and Brad Friedel and Clint Dempsey at Tottenham, there have been a few players who have more recently made the move overseas and have been having success since. Last year, Tim Ream completed a move from the New York Red Bulls to Bolton Wanderers, currently in the English Championship (2nd Division), where we have partners Sheffield Wednesday and Wolves. He had been a regular starter for them. Tim Ream has an American teammate, Stuart Holden, who was recently loaned out to GIS partner club Sheffield Wednesday. Another new English import is Geoff Cameron, who finalized a transfer from Houston Dynamo to Stoke City of the English Premier League at the start of the season and has been a regular starter since. Brad Guzan has also emerged into his own this year as Aston Villa’s #1 goalkeeper after being there since 2008.

Out of all these players, however, our favorite has to be Sebastian Lletget at GIS partner club West Ham United. He was brought up through American youth partner club Santa Clara Sporting SC, and was exposed to West Ham the same way many of the young boys and girls that recently went on the WHU International Academy trip were! This proves that although difficult, these trips really could be an opportunity of a lifetime and jumpstart a young footballer’s professional career.

Along with these players in England, there are also Americans having success in other countries where GIS has partner clubs. Jozy Altidore has a total of 28 goals this year for AZ Alkmaar in the Dutch Eredivisie, which is the top flight of football in Holland and the same league that GIS partner club FC Utrecht plays in. America also has representation in the Italian Serie A from Michael Bradley. Bradley played for GIS partner club ChievoVerona for two seasons, before recently signing a lucrative 4 year contract with Italian power AS Roma.

I hope you enjoyed reading up on some updates about our partner clubs and some Americans finding success overseas. If you have any questions or comments, please don’t hesitate to post below, and make sure to stay tuned for new blogs coming your way!

Yours in football,
Global Image Sports

This blog was written by Carl Woszczynski. Carl is currently a professional goalkeeper for the Los Angeles Blues of the USL-PRO. He was drafted by the Chicago Fire in the 2012 MLS Draft, and was the 3^rd overall goalkeeper to be drafted. Prior to his professional career, Carl was a 4-year player at the University of Alabama-Birmingham (NCAA), where he was a 2-time captain and an All-American.

Along with the MLS season wrapping up, the American college soccer season is also starting to come to a close. The NCAA Division I teams are currently preparing for the Elite 8, which features the final eight remaining teams in the end of the year tournament. This year’s Elite 8 features #9 North Carolina vs #16 Indiana, #3 Georgetown vs San Diego, #2 Maryland vs #10 Louisville, and #4 Connecticut vs #12 Creighton. These games will be played Novemeber 30, December 1, and Decemeber 2, with the first listed team hosting the game. The winners of these games will move on to College Cup, which is the final four teams, and will be hosted by the University of Alabama-Birmingham in Hoover, Alabama.

The ultimate test of a true team is one that can avoid defeat through this grueling college tournament and be named NCAA Division I Men’s Soccer National Champions! Although this tournament surely features numerous future professional footballers, how well the team does is a great advantage to the individual players. The further a college team makes it in the tournament, the more an individual player can be seen by scouts and raise his stock in their eyes. Here at Global Image Sports, we offer overseas tours to entire college teams, which we feel is a huge benefit in helping a team’s performance! Not only are players exposed to a top level of training and games, but they also get to spend time together in a unique environment, which greatly helps the team-building process and brings the whole team closer together. In sports, being a tight knit team could be the difference in winning or losing a very important game. GIS works very closely with college coaches to make sure the tours are specialized to meet all of their individual wants and needs for the experience. By visiting globalimagesports.com, a coach can find more information about tours, and make contact to start building their custom tour!

As the American soccer season wraps up, try to tune in to as many remaining games as possible! No matter what level a player is at, whether it be youth, college, or professional, there is always room to improve and grow by watching others play. Also, make sure to follow Global Image Sports on Facebook and Twitter for other exciting news and announcements!

Yours In Football,

Global Image Sports

This blog was written by Carl Woszczynski. Carl is currently a professional goalkeeper for the Los Angeles Blues of the USL-PRO. He was drafted by the Chicago Fire in the 2012 MLS Draft, and was the 3^rd overall goalkeeper to be drafted. Prior to his professional career, Carl was a 4-year player at the University of Alabama-Birmingham (NCAA), where he was a 2-time captain and an All-American.

“My child is a sophomore in high school, plays club soccer, and is looking to play in college…but we have no idea where to go from here!” This is a common phrase said by families all around the country. There are hundreds of thousands, and even millions, of perspective college student-athletes around the country. However, many of them have no idea where to begin the college recruitment process to achieve their goals. First off, it is never too early, nor too late, to start the recruiting process, but there are definitely some key times to focus in on.

All of the summers of your high school career are great times to attend some college camps of your choice where you may have some interest in playing. A lot of colleges also feature “elite” winter camps, which are more focused on older players really looking to play in college. These camps are a great time to see the college campus, meet some of the current college players, and see the personalities of the coaches. Just as importantly, the camps are a chance for the coaches to get to meet you and see you play, which is what it’s all about. Exposure is a huge key to the college recruiting process, and we will discuss some ways to get your name out there.

Another great way for college coaches to see you play is to go to some College Showcase tournaments with your club team. The bigger club tournaments feature 100’s of college coaches watching players. Also, if you are going to be at a tournament, make sure to email your tournament game schedule to the coaches of the schools you are interested in playing at so they know you are there. Finally, around your junior year of high school, make a highlight DVD from club and school soccer, and send it out to as many schools as you want. Make sure you include a typed resume and a short letter to the coach in the package. The recruiting process is all about being proactive. The most successful recruiting stories come from players who really put themselves out there and got themselves exposure, not players that sat back and waited for colleges to come after them!

I believe possibly the most important part of the recruiting process has nothing do to with soccer, but with your high school grades and academics. Division I schools can only offer 9.9 athletic scholarships to their men’s soccer program and 12.0 for the women’s programs. When you think that each team has probably 25 to 30 players, it is not much money to go around! There is MUCH more money in academic scholarships. If you are able to show a college coach that he doesn’t have to worry about you being academically eligible to play, AND that he can find you some academic scholarship money, it raises your stock as a player immensely! Besides the scholarship aspect, if you didn’t do any schoolwork in high school, you may not be able to get into your dream college if you don’t have good enough grades!

Here at Global Image Sports, we have formed a partnership with NCSA Athletic Recruiting Network (ncsasports.org) to help our partner club players throughout the recruiting process. The NCSA website has numerous great features on it, including Coach Requests, which shows what type of players certain coaches are recruiting, guidance and education courses for both players and parents, and also a Highlight DVD feature. In this feature, a player can send all of his game film that he wants included on a highlight video, and NCSA will edit all of the video together to form a highlight video! And, NCSA will make a player’s first video for free, which is a great value.

I hope this blog gave a lot of insight into the wild world of college recruiting. The blog could have gone on for pages and pages, as there is a ton of information on the topic, but I have included what I believe are some of the main points. If you have any more questions about the recruiting process, feel free to post them as comments underneath this blog, and we will do our best to answer them! Be on the lookout for the next GIS Blog, and follow us on Twitter and Facebook for more updates about the company and partner clubs!

Yours In Football,

Global Image Sports

This blog was written by Carl Woszczynski. Carl is currently a professional goalkeeper for the Los Angeles Blues of the USL-PRO. He was drafted by the Chicago Fire in the 2012 MLS Draft, and was the 3^rd overall goalkeeper to be drafted. Prior to his professional career, Carl was a 4-year player at the University of Alabama-Birmingham (NCAA), where he was a 2-time captain and an All-American.

It is many Americans’ dream to one day play for the likes of Manchester United, Barcelona, and Real Madrid. Unfortunately, it is extremely difficult to get in with these footballing powerhouses. Knowing this, Global Image Sports has made the decision to try to partner with quality football clubs in which we feel young American players will have a better chance of success. Many of the bigger clubs in the world have started to lose focus on their academy teams as well, with big money investors putting hundreds of millions of dollars towards the signing of top established players. We realize that the previously mentioned clubs have a great draw in America and would attract numerous American youth soccer clubs to partner with us, but it’s not all about making money here. With much of our staff having been in or around the professional game for years, we know how hard it can be, and really want to give our partner club’s players the best chance for success!

Here at GIS, we feel that one of the best ways to become successful is for a player to work his way up the football ladder, advancing from league to league until eventually reaching the top. This past season in the English Premier League (England’s top division), only 77 league appearances were made by players 21 years of age or younger during the entire season! With every EPL team playing 38 league games a year, these appearances were obviously few and far between.  However, when you look down into the English Championship, League 1, and League 2, younger players were getting many more chances to gain game experience and showcase their abilities. From these appearances, players from lower divisions get bought by top clubs for millions of dollars at the end of every season. Even in America, players regularly move up from the USL-PRO and NASL 2^nd division leagues into the MLS.

Global Image Sports uses all of this knowledge to strategically choose what European football clubs we partner with. For example, even though West Ham United was in the English Championship last season (2^nd division), they are known worldwide for having one of the best youth academies in all of football. We look to partner with clubs in different countries and leagues to give our American youth soccer clubs access to the greatest chance of success. We are always in talks with other European football clubs looking to expand on the opportunities we can offer our American players.

I hope this first blog has given you a bit of insight into a few of our philosophies here at Global Image Sports, including how we feel American players can have success in the world of football, as well how we strategically pick the European football clubs we choose to partner with. Be sure to check in to GlobalImageSports.com all year to keep up-to-date with the new GIS blog, and see which new topics we will be discussing every week!

Yours In Football,

Global Image Sports

This blog was written by Carl Woszczynski. Carl is currently a professional goalkeeper for the Los Angeles Blues of the USL-PRO. He was drafted by the Chicago Fire in the 2012 MLS Draft, and was the 3^rd overall goalkeeper to be drafted. Prior to his professional career, Carl was a 4-year player at the University of Alabama-Birmingham (NCAA), where he was a 2-time captain and an All-American.