My Soccer Showcase Experience

The 2012 London Showcase was a three day event, held at the London Soccer Dome (David Beckham Academy), in December. As FirstPoint have more male soccer clients than female, the first two days were dedicated to the men and the last day was dedicated to the women. FirstPoint USA are heavily involved in social media, such as Twitter and Facebook, and because of this I was able to talk to a couple of the other girls before the showcase. Just knowing how others are feeling helps calm nerves and build excitement for the event. There was about a 20 minute wait in the reception area, before everyone was told to make their way through the doors, register and head in to the conference room. We were then welcomed by several different speakers including Andrew Kean himself, and Ashleigh Townsend, a former client and current nutritional blogger. After this, everyone was called out one team at a time, and directed to some of the FirstPoint staff. The staff handed everyone a shirt to which each person had their own number and were allowed to take the shirt home after the event. There were three female teams and every team was to play each other once, adding up to three games being played in total. Having played in the client game earlier on in the year, I recognised a few of the girls on each team and saw a few more that I had talked to on twitter as well. I was in #TeamChicago and we were scheduled to play in the first and last game, giving us an hours rest in the middle. This had both advantages and disadvantages: we didn’t get too tired from playing two consecutive games and we got a break to have some food or just chill with our parents and friends, but we had to warm up all over again before the second match. We had the great privilege of having Jimmy Calderwood lead our warm up and act as our head coach for the day which was really cool. Due to an injury, our team stood at a bare eleven at the start of the day compared to the 13 of the other two teams. Resulting in all of us having a good run out on the pitch, but when one of our players had to be taken off injured in the final game, we were down to 10, and our team just didn’t seem to have the energy. We put up a good fight and I think everyone got some good footage, some didn’t even appear to struggle at all, still it was hard playing when we just didn’t have the legs. At the end of the showcase some girls were asked to stay behind to speak to a particular coach. It was a bit disappointing not being chosen at this stage, but each coach is looking for something specific. If you don’t play in the position they are looking to fill or the style they play in, they aren’t looking for you at that particular time. The footage from the Showcase is promoted to loads of Universities in the New Year anyway. There will be a University looking for someone just like you! About a week after the showcase I received a couple of emails from different universities saying that they were impressed with how I played and were interested in talking more. Some were at the showcase and some had seen my profile online, as it had only been put up a few weeks previously. The buzz you get from receiving one of those emails is incredible and talking to coaches on the phone and through Skype is really cool as well. The event was organised really well and all of the staff members were happy to talk if you had any problems. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity for me and I would highly recommend any soccer client of FirstPoint USA to attend next year. It’s not the end of the world if you can’t make it, but it is such a good experience. I just hope that FirstPoint can start Showcases for other sports soon so that everyone can experience this great opportunity!  

Did you know we are currently holding female soccer assessments throughout the country? Register now and you could be on your way to the USA!