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-Kyle Sheldon, Co-Founder & CEO

IN THIS ISSUE

NEW SOCCER JOBS

When people say they want to work in soccer, they usually have a picture in their head.

A specific club.

A specific role.

Maybe even a specific city.

There’s nothing wrong with having a dream job.

The problem is when that dream becomes the reason you ignore every opportunity that doesn’t perfectly match it.

Because your first job in soccer doesn’t need to be your dream job.

It needs to get you moving.

Careers rarely happen in a straight line.

The person working for their dream MLS club today may have started at a USL team.

The person leading partnerships may have started in ticket sales.

In fact, I recently had a conversation with someone who started as an entry-level ticket sales rep at an MLS club and now, 10 years later, is leading global partnership sales for an English Premier League club.

What mattered wasn’t that they landed the perfect opportunity immediately.

It was that they got somewhere they could:

Then they used that experience to create the next opportunity.

Where you start is not where you end up.

Early in your career, it’s easy to become overly focused on the brand on your résumé.

But sometimes a smaller organization can give you something a major club can’t: Responsibility.

You might get exposure to multiple departments.

You might work directly with senior leaders.

You might own projects earlier than you expected.

You might make mistakes, learn from them, and figure out what part of the business you actually enjoy.

Don’t just ask:

“How impressive will this look on LinkedIn?”

Ask:

“How much better will I be after spending two years here?”

That answer matters more.

The same goes for job titles.

If you’re holding out for “Manager” because you’ve decided “Coordinator” is beneath you, you could be missing an opportunity that gives you significantly more responsibility.

Titles vary wildly from organization to organization.

Look at the work.

Those questions tell you far more about an opportunity than the title does.

Location can be another trap.

Everyone has cities and clubs they’d love to work for.

But particularly early in your career, being willing to go where the opportunity is can dramatically expand your options.

You aren’t deciding where you’ll spend the rest of your life.

You’re deciding where the next chapter starts.

The first 15 years of my career took me from Milwaukee to Minneapolis to DC and finally to Charlotte before I landed the head of marketing role with Seattle Sounders FC.

That was the job I was working towards from my early 20s.

Sometimes the opportunity that takes you somewhere unexpected is the one that eventually gets you where you wanted to go.

None of this means you should stop being ambitious.

Quite the opposite.

Know where you ultimately want to go.

Then work backward.

If your dream role requires five skills and you currently have two, find an opportunity that helps you develop the third.

If everyone in the position you want has experience in partnerships, find a way to get exposure to partnerships.

If you need relationships in the industry, put yourself somewhere you’ll build them.

Your next job doesn’t need to be the destination.

It needs to move you closer to it.

Don’t let the perfect opportunity keep you from taking a good one.

Your first soccer job might not have the title, club, salary, or city you imagined.

That’s okay.

Get into an environment where you can learn, become useful, meet good people, and do great work.

Then use everything you gained to create the next opportunity.

👉 This week, look at one soccer role you normally would have dismissed because of the title, organization, or location. Instead of asking whether it’s your dream job, ask what it could teach you.

Your dream job can still be the goal, it just doesn’t have to be the first stop.

-Kyle Sheldon, Co-Founder & CEO

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SEE YOU SOON, SOCCER FRIENDS