Day 5 - January 21st (9hrs)

The first day of the tournament was extremely busy. We were heading to the field at 7:30am to make sure we get familiar with the complex layout and to know where our assigned fields were. Since there were 12 games going on at the same time, we split ourselves up to watch one half each. Every game was played for 90 minutes total, split in two 45-minute half’s. On the first day of the ECNL showcase we scouted for players that graduate in 2023 or 2024. Those players are some of the hottest recruits in the US right now, as there were over 150 college scouts present at the showcase, varying from Division 1, Division 2, Division 3 and NAIA coaches all the way to scholarship agencies like Warubi Sports and Athletes USA.

We had a very specific way of taking notes during the games. We were instructor by the boss to mark down both starting XI´s of each team with the numbers of the players, and mark down any player that stood out including strengths and weaknesses. Since we all watched 45 minutes of each game, this allowed us to rule out any one-time performances by players. A nice amenity of the tournament was the coaches and scouts tent, which provided coffee, snacks and lunch during the whole 8 hours of the showcase. After we watched about 10 different games each, we went back to our accommodation to exchange our scouting reports. We started an excel file to track the players we liked, which helped us to split up for the games on Sunday, since we wanted to watch the specific games of players we identified as possible new leads for the agency.