How Long Should a Soccer Highlight Reel Be?
You’ve gone through and selected the clips you want to go into your highlight reel to send to a college soccer coach and confirmed that they all show one of the following:
Technical Ability With the Ball
Soccer IQ/ Off-the-Ball Knowledge
Athletic Ability
Team Player
Additionally, you want to make sure that you don’t make a mistake in the video (like miss a simple pass to a teammate for a tap-in as you go on to score a golazo).
After this, you have great news! You have 35 minutes of highlights to share. But is that too long?
Yes, yes it is. You want your highlight video to max out at 3 minutes or so. So how do you trim it down?
How To Get Your Soccer Highlight Video Down to Three Minutes
Before we get to the rough numbers: you want to share enough footage so that you make a good first impression with the coaches you’re sending it to. Don’t expect them to reach out with an offer after watching your highlight reel; this is for the initial evaluation with the goal of getting a more in-depth one (such as they come watch you at the next showcase or so you are on their radar before a summer camp they’re running).
With that goal in mind, you want to keep it as short as you can – 2-3 minutes is the right range. If you want to fit 20 clips into 3 minutes, each one would only be 9 seconds long. Is that enough to show an individual skill? Typically not, but for some that works. For most actions, you’ll likely want to show a little bit of buildup to show your soccer IQ that led to the reason you want to share that clip.
Highlighting Multiple Skill Sets
If your clips average 17 seconds in length, you can get around 11 into your highlight reel. And if you want to show your versatility, make sure to split the reel into relatively even sections per skill. Something like 3 to 4 videos each for:
You on the ball in possession
You off the ball in possession
You in a 1 v 1 on defense
You making a play in transition
Now, within each category, you have to select the clip that best highlights that specific skill. We completely understand not wanting to cut clips out, but you have to – if the coach is getting 75 videos for seven roster spots they need to fill, they’re going to stop watching the video after a few minutes anyway.
Which Highlights Need to Be Longer Than Others?
To answer which highlights need to be longer and which shorter, you need to honestly answer the question per highlight: why am I sharing this? If you want to show you bringing down a long pass with a clean first touch, you can do that in a few seconds.
If you want to show you covering a passing lane, you’ll have to add a little more so the coach can see how your positioning made the decision for the other player not to go your way. So, while its natural to want to spend more time on the cooler action, there are times when it will make a bigger impact if you shorten it and spend more time on the one that seems more boring.
Remember: you are making this video so a coach realizes that they want to see more of you and should want you on their team – they are the audience and you need to cater the video to them.
If you have any questions about what needs to go into a highlight reel you want to send to a college soccer coach, set up a mentoring session with us and we can go through the details.
Next up: what are the best apps to create a soccer highlight reel.
