Last summer when I moved to Georgia for a summer internship, I became involved in a project with my cousins to highlight urban soccer in a way that hasn’t been done before. It is common to come across social media pages that showcase young football and basketball players across the nation, but this is not the case for soccer. Our goal was to create a platform like HoopMixtape and Ballislife, but for the beautiful game.
Unfortunately, it was the summer, a time when most club and varsity teams are out of season. But, I would be only be there for the summer, so we put all hands on deck. We went park to park, filming soccer players in Atlanta who were screaming to have their names heard. We hit indoor courts as well, sometimes participating in the games to encourage competition. We built a reputation as we improved our equipment. Everyone knew once the camera came out that it was time pull their best skills out of their bag. I would do most of the filming while teaching my cousin filming techniques, preparing for my departure from Georgia after my internship. He would chop up the footage and turn it into a digestible less-than-a-minute film masterpiece. By the end of my internship, we had doubled the following for the page.
He is still working hard to showcase the talents of these urban kids who work hard on the soccer field. You can check out him and his team’s work here: https://www.instagram.com/kleatssoccer/.
I’ll leave you with the mission statement: KLEATS is a sports agency that primarily focuses on soccer through media, merchandising and youth development. Our goal is to connect the world’s game by empowering global players and ambassadors through education, activation, and entertainment.
