Starting in 2016 Starting in 2016 when I was 13, David Carvalho was my head coach at the Philadelphia Ukrainian Nationals.  He immediately impacted our team and led us to a USYS Regional Final and a USYS National #3 Ranking in his first year. David’s success as a coach and trainer are certainly measurable but his development of every player and their personal growth as young men under his guidance can’t be measured.  No one was more instrumental in helping me develop as a player and guiding me to be a college player. Throughout my personal recruiting process, David and I met regularly and discussed my goals and best fit college programs. As the recruiting process advanced, he made personal outreach to my target schools and ultimately was instrumental in my selection of a school and program that was the right fit for me.

Coach David helped me from being a regular bench player who wanted to change his position to get more playing time, to a regular starter at my position. I would play wing and striker and I was asking what I needed to start and doubted myself, but Coach seen the good in me and told me the flaws I needed to work on. Within a couple months i was a starter and would contribute to the team winning games. Coach helped me understand the game much better tactically which would separate me from other players in the eyes of college scouts. He would also give me enough minutes to get looked at by college coaches, and i scouted by millersville one if the times i didnt start because i was on heavy legs so it shows that Coach David had me in consideration as he put me in for a good amount of minutes that i could make something happen but i also wouldnt kill myself physically. David is definitely the best coach i have had as he helped me get better at my game physically but especially tactically! 

Coach David helped me in numerous ways throughout my recruiting process. One of the first things that he told me to do and assisted me in doing was making a sheet ordering my wants and my needs in a college. I had to factor soccer, academics, money, size, and location into a 1 through 5 list ordering one group in things that were most important in stuff I wanted for my college experience and on the other side things I needed for my experience. Another thing that helped was Coach David’s help in constructing an email that would catch a coaches eye but also a highlight film that was formatted in such a way to grab a college coaches attention. I think pairing both of these together in the emails I sent out really helped me achieve success in the college process. All in all, with Coach David’s in my recruiting process, I was able to receive an offer from a Division 1 school (Lehigh) and also find my home for the next 4 years being West Chester University.