Thank you guys again for watching
another episode of footballers advice my
name is Michael Galullo and today I
wanted to talk about networking the
importance of networking and how you can
do it and use the different platforms on
social media to actually gain contacts
in the professional soccer world like
many players, I know some people watching
may think, Michael I don't have any
players or contacts that I could reach
out to that can put me in the
professional soccer world and I
definitely understand that, but the
beautiful thing about today guys is you
have to think a couple years ago the
only resource players had was the FIFA
website with the list of agents that
they certified that you could contact
and you know get their email and send a
resume and a highlight tape and hope
they respond the beautiful thing about
today is that we have smartphones and
with smartphones come social media I'm
talking about Instagram, Twitter, and
Facebook
We literally have contacts around the
world in the professional soccer world
at our fingertips and this is the reason
why I tell players you need to have a
Facebook account you need to have an
Instagram and a Twitter account because
you can leverage those accounts in
order to contact players who are
professional, coaches, agents, scouts I
mean today you can even contact the kit
manager for a professional soccer team
and who knows you never know by reaching
out to that individual if he's the one
that's going to be able to put your
information in front of a coach, in front
of a president that's going to allow you
to you know come out and train with the
team or get some sort of contact on who
to contact within the club that's the
beautiful thing about social media today
guys let's use Instagram for example you
could go on the explore page type in
soccer and you'll see a lot of posts
about soccer and some of them will be
just guys kicking around and they won't
have any professional contacts but maybe
you stumble across you know a player who
plays for a professional soccer team
that posted about soccer and now you can
go ahead go to his Instagram account and
send them a direct message. You don't
even need to have anyone's email or
phone number to get a hold of them today
guys that's the beautiful thing about
social media and that's why I tell
everyone you need
to use social media to your advantage you need to go out and you need to find
these contacts on social media I mean
Facebook is another great example you
can Facebook message people and you can
see if they've seen your message and
they can respond to you easily I mean
you have to think all of social media is
on your phone you literally have access
to anyone anywhere in the world through
their phone
I mean email is one thing yeah they get
a bunch of emails you got to think these
coaches, they don't want to read
sometimes all these emails if you send
them a direct message through social
media there might be a better chance
that they respond to you and one tip
that I'll give you guys that I've
learned throughout you know my time
trying to you know gain contacts is that
a lot of the times when you send a
message whether it be email or even via
social media a lot of coaches may not
respond a lot of agents may not respond but the one thing that I've realized is
that if you send a player a message more
than likely they will respond and here's
why one, they've been in your shoes you
know a lot of guys that are in the
professional game have gone through
the same journey that me and you are
going through and they understand the
struggle they understand the grind and
they're willing to put their neck out
there for you to help you out a great
thing to do guys that I actually would
recommend is go and look at the roster
for professional soccer teams and go
back a year, go back two years to the old
roster a lot of times there's going to
be players that have either retired and
they're done playing the professional
game and sometimes those are the best
resources and the best people that you
could contact because now they have no
actual ties in terms of playing and
agents that they you know sometimes
can't give their information out when
they're playing but now since they're
retired they're willing to give that
information to you and a lot of players
like I said when they see you reaching
out and you tell them a little bit about
your story and you provide them that
information like a highlight tape and a
resume they're more than willing to help
you out and the thing with players is
you have to think to guys even if you
look and you contact someone who used to
play somewhere else professionally they
have no ties to that
team anymore with an agent it's a lot
harder because you know they have ties
to different clubs and they can't always
stick their neck out for players because
they're protecting themselves they're
protecting their own brand their own
connections because if they reference a
player who you know to the club isn't up
to their standard, the agent doesn't look
as reliable anymore so players are
actually the best contact that you have
because they don't have any relationship
with their prior club anymore, they're on
to their next club or like I said when
they're retired they don't have any
financial connection to the club and what I
mean by that guys is agents obviously
you know take a percentage out of the
contract that they get you so
financially they are invested in
recommending you to clubs, players aren't
so players are a great resource to reach
out to retired players as well and like
I said you can do that either through
email or you could do that through
social media and I highly suggest that
you do that through social media because you
literally have access to someone's phone
and you literally can contact them just
like if you had their phone number and
you were texting them that's the
beautiful thing about social media guys
I really hope some of this information
helped because this as I've gone through
my journey this has helped me gain
contact information in the professional
soccer world that I never would have had I
can't tell you how many people I've
reached out to how many messages I've
sent but the players who have sent
something back and they may not be able
to give you everything but the fact that
they responded means you're getting your
name out there and eventually you're
going to be able to get contacts and
reach out to people who are
going to be able to help you in the
professional soccer world as always guys
thank you again for watching don't
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can check out more great content that I
post for you here in the future and also
go ahead and leave a comment down below
in the comment section I'd love to hear
of other ways that you guys have reached
out to professional soccer teams that
way you could at least gain some
contacts and possibly go ahead and go on
trial with them thank you again guys and
I'll see you next time!
