Longtime scout Jerry Penkala ([email protected]), owner and operator of JTF Academy, has compiled a list of the most common pet peeves shared by college coaches around the country, when it comes to recruiting in the modern youth soccer landscape.
———
Over the past 15+ years of helping ECNL and Girls Academy players navigate the recruiting process — and securing scholarship offers for more than 600 of them — I’ve been fortunate to earn the trust and friendship of close to 100-125 Division I college coaches from all over the country.
That dual perspective has given me a rare view of both sides: the challenges families and players face, and the day-to-day realities college coaches deal with when scouting in today’s landscape.
Most of the conversation on social media focuses on how recruits and parents are navigating an overcrowded, ultra-competitive environment—especially after the NCAA settlement brought the 28-player roster cap and the new “5-in-5” recruiting rules. Those structural changes have transformed college recruiting, and the deeper issues they created will be the focus of a future article.
For this piece, I wanted to share the practical frustrations that make coaches’ scouting harder — and have actually cut into the amount of time and the number of recruits they can evaluate. These are easily fixable problems. If they can finally get addressed, it would meaningfully improve scouting for coaches while creating better evaluation opportunities for players.
(+READ: How the NCAA’s 5-in-5 Rule Will Impact the Recruiting Classes of 2027-2030)
The information came directly from those coaching friends, including many of the most respected and successful coaches in the country. Even during the beginning of the fall women’s college soccer season — their busiest time of year — almost 80% of the 70+ D1 coaches I reached out to took the time to respond and share their frustrations. Their hope is that this information might finally push forward these simple changes that would benefit both sides.
The following are the most common “pet peeves” that showed up on the majority of the coaches’ lists—some of which even surprised me.
RECRUITS WITH LONG PONYTAILS COVERING THEIR JERSEY NUMBERS
The first time I received this complaint, I almost started laughing. But when it showed up over and over — on so many coaches’ responses — I thought about it and realized they were exactly right.
Coach Comment: “It is especially annoying to have to try and ‘time it perfectly’ with my head tilted and eyes glued to the jersey, hoping for a strong wind gust or a one-v-one tackle to move the ponytail and allow the number to be visible.”
TOTAL LACK OF AWARENESS AND ATTENTION TO DETAIL
So true in so many ways. I could have done an entire article on this topic itself, but it might be best described by this example from a Power 4 conference coach:
Coach comment: “The fact that recruits, their parents, and coaches have paid thousands of dollars to get to these showcases, and a quarter of the game is spent fetching balls running into other fields because ECNL/GA don’t provide enough game balls.”
THE “HOVERING” PARENT HANDING OUT TEAM ROSTERS
Having spent over a decade at showcases, this one is spot on. How so many parents have no ability to “read the room” — and realize these coaches are just trying to do their job and evaluate recruits — always amazes me. That hovering hurts their daughter’s chances more than they know.
Coach comment: “I wish the hovering parent knew just how many times I have immediately put a huge red line through their daughter’s name when that parent finally walked away after spending 12 straight minutes explaining to me why their daughter is easily the best player on that club team, and reasons why I need to make their daughter an offer on June 15th.”
THE QR CODE VS. PHYSICAL ROSTER
This was probably the second or third most common complaint — coaches frustrated by how much harder this makes their scouting.
Multiple coaches, same comment: “How do these clubs and club admins not know that we use the physical roster to make notes and details of the players that stood out to us? Seems like a total lack of awareness and common sense.”
SHOWCASE GAME SCHEDULING WITH NO THOUGHT PUT INTO IT
More coaches raised this than I expected, and their frustration is real. This could be fixed so easily, yet it happens over and over.
Coach comment: “If you ever figure out the logic of having a recruiting event with two main age groups that the event organizers know we will be focusing on, yet the U17 games are all scheduled at 8am and the U16 games are scheduled at 7pm, I’d love to hear it.”
WINTER SHOWCASE LOCATIONS
I knew this one was coming. It started years ago with the ECNL December Showcase in Tennessee — where 80% of the games that weekend were either totally canceled or shortened to 40 minutes total — and it seems to have gotten worse each year since, especially at recent ECNL showcases in St. Louis.
College comment: “Between the very high likelihood that games will either be shortened or canceled at the November and December showcases in cold weather cities, or the even higher likelihood that me and my staff will be getting frostbite while the players we are trying to evaluate start turning different shades of blue while kicking a frozen soccer ball that is closer to a concrete block — why?”
UNREADABLE JERSEY NUMBERS AND WARM-UPS WITHOUT NUMBERS
This is getting more common, and coaches are getting more frustrated — especially since it is completely unnecessary.
Coach comment: “It’s bad enough that parents have to shell out money every 1-2 years for ‘new kits.’ The fact that someone at that club is choosing to have the jersey number basically ‘transparent’ and impossible to read even if I was standing directly next to the recruit baffles the mind.”
Another coach: “Do club coaches even know we have been watching warm-ups more and more because of the many recruiting changes, yet they allow players to wear a number of things that completely hide the player’s jersey number? I get that some clubs have different-colored pinnies during pre-game drills, but is it really that difficult to use light colored pinnies that still allow the player’s jersey number to be seen through it?”
THE UNNECESSARY “MYSTERY” OF WHICH KEEPER IS PLAYING WHICH HALF
I heard more frustration and anger about this ridiculous issue than any other. And until a club coach or keeper coach shares one valid reason to continue doing this, college coaches shared that they will simply start spending their keeper-scouting time with the players who do know which halves they’ll be playing — and share that information weeks before the showcase.
Coach comment: “I am almost 100% positive that club coaches know that me and my staff have our entire scouting schedule completed at least two weeks before most events. They also know that because of the massive recruiting changes, we have been forced to adapt and are now only scouting for one half at most games. The ‘mystery half’ logic of club coaches not telling their keepers which half they are playing until right before the game starts is only hurting both of their keepers. In the past year alone, I have walked away from multiple games of keepers I had scheduled to scout if the keeper was not playing in the half I had scheduled. Instead, I went and watched another keeper that did know which half they were playing in each game of that showcase — and shared that information a week or two ahead of time.”
AND THE #1 COMPLAINT — THE ONE THAT EVERY SINGLE COACH LISTED…..
THE REFUSAL OF ECNL AND GIRLS ACADEMY SCHEDULERS TO WORK TOGETHER WHEN SCHEDULING THEIR ANNUAL SHOWCASE DATE
This is easily the most maddening issue coaches face in today’s recruiting landscape. The fact that both ECNL and Girls Academy clubs continue to schedule their important showcases on the exact same weekend in the complete opposite part of the country — or schedule them “back to back weekends with a day or two overlap”— has coaches at their breaking point.
I have so many opinions I’d love to share on this topic, but I’ll let the coaches speak for themselves:
“All that this ridiculous, unnecessary, and recurring issue has done is negatively impact a huge majority of their own club players.”
“I often wonder WHY both leagues keep doing this same thing year after year. The only thing that my staff and I have come up with is that it is a complete ‘ego’ thing — which makes this entire issue even more ridiculous.”
“I was not going to share my thoughts for this article and keep my many complaints to myself. But knowing how many talented players that me and my staff will not be able to see in the upcoming 2026-27 showcases, I wanted to share this: for the first time in my coaching career, I am starting to doubt if either of these leagues genuinely has the best interests of their players and families in mind.”
“My staff and I will not be splitting up to try and attend both showcases any longer. It is not productive and has almost become a waste of time. Plus, many of my coaching colleagues across the country have had way too many conversations about how frustrated this has gotten after seeing absolutely no changes in the majority of scheduling. We are all to the point that maybe the only thing that will finally force a long-needed change is for all of our programs to stop attending those overlapping showcases. It never had to get this bad, and I still have no idea why both leagues did not have the common sense to change this years ago.”
In the end, the outstanding coaches who contributed to this article shared one underlying message: Hopefully the right people at both ECNL and Girls Academy will see this and finally understand that the only people this continued stubborn, unnecessary scheduling behavior is affecting are the very players and families keeping their clubs in existence.
