In today’s era, you probably bombarded with various resources from social media platform about anything in life, from YouTube channels to Instagram. Likewise in football, there are so many platforms that you feel you have to do and you often compare yourself to them. On this occasion, I’m going to draw 4 resources from professional footballers who use YouTube to give an insight into their professional world.
Matt Sheldon – Become Elite
You probably know him and follow his journey up until now. Matt Sheldon is an American born professional football player who currently plays for FC Tulsa at United Soccer League Championship in the United States. USL itself is the second division for professional football in the US. In his channel, you got to see his training, workouts, lifestyle, mindset, nutrition that are important for the game.
He also has his own match analysis where you can learn the tactical of the game which again is very crucial in football. You can see his journey from when he was an amateur trying his luck in Germany and then signing his first professional contract with OC Blues back in 2016 then dropped down to play in a semi-pro in New Zealand due to his injury and got back up again to play in the USL for 2020 season.
Will Oluremi John
Another American football player who was previously playing in Georgia first division with FC Locomotive Tbilisi according to transermarkt.com. Will John spent most of his playing career in Europe. Also, he managed to play for the US national team for the age group category when he was a teenager.
In his channel, you see similar things such as training drills, workouts, nutrition guide and he even has a 21-day football program free to access in his playlist which obviously very beneficial. Of course, once 21 days passed you can repeat them as many time as you like. He also put a lot of banter in his videos, just in case you guys wondering.
Jack Blake
Jack Blake was born in England and was involved in Nottingham Forest academy in his early stage to set him up for the English football league system. Unfortunately, it didn’t go as it was expected. He got released after he finished his time in the academy and moved to America. Started at the semi-pro level and he progressed up through the US soccer system and currently plays for Real Monarch at USL Championship same as Matt Sheldon.
In fact, he was part of the Real Monarch winning team in 2019 where they won the league. In his YouTube channel, you can see similar stuff with different settings about the lifestyle of a professional footballer. From his personal training, workouts, nutrition and he even filmed the insight of his team workouts and session.
Michael Lewis Cunningham – 7MLC Training
One of the most technical players in this YouTube realm is Michael Lewis Cunningham or 7MLC as his channel says. Compare to the other 3, he didn’t play as high league as them, but no disrespect to him. He is originally from England and was part of Luton Town academy in his teenage years. Also has played in Australia in the NPL league as well as college soccer in the US as a student-athlete.
He has played for an indoor football team that plays in Major Arena Soccer League (MASL) last season. Recently, he just signed with FC Tulsa for the upcoming 2021/2022 season. As I said before, he possesses the technicality of world-class players and shows a lot of training drills, workout, lifestyle, mindset and nutrition guide inside his channel. Having featured for soccer.com, unisport.com and got invited to Premier League training session event proved that he is a high-level player.
Takeaway
There’s a reason I only mentioned these four because they are the ones who already experienced it. They’ve been experiencing the ups and downs of the journey. You probably thought that these players are not even in the top 5 European leagues so why bother. Here is the thing, not everybody is able to play at that level. Statistically, only 1%, not even all of the academy graduates play football in those 5 European leagues. That’s the reality of professional football, unfortunately.
Rather than talking bad about them, we have to appreciate and respect what they have done. Because even reaching that level takes a lot of hard work, dedication, sacrifice, discipline that we didn’t see behind the curtain. Yet they managed to give us a valuable insight into professional football through their videos. Even though they didn’t get paid millions of cash or playing at the very top, they are still professional and expert in their field. That’s why we should learn from them.
