Marat in his club jersey, arms crossed

I’m 10 years late. I’m earning a pro contract anyway.

Broken back at 16. Benched at 17. Then ten years away from the game. I’m documenting the whole attempt: the fitness numbers, the tryouts, and the rejections. Nothing edited out.

The Baseline Kit on signup, then my weekly numbers so you can compare and run it with me. Unsubscribe anytime.

DAY 028 → NEXT TEST 10K · OCT 25 · 92 DAYS

The arc

Ten years in six beats.

16The peakStarting keeper, top team, one of the best clubs in the state.
16L4 and L5A pickup game, a lost temper, two fractures. A year gone.
17BenchedHe was taller. That was the whole argument. Senior year, no tryout.
10yThe attention businessA decade building other people’s audiences.
×2Semi-pro rostersSecond team, then first. Then another club: real minutes as the tactical sub.
NOWAll inA defender. Fully committed, not stopping until I go pro. Everything documented.

The short version: I left the game ten years ago and spent that decade learning how attention works. Now I’m going all in, and I’m not doing it alone. Every data point gets tracked and published, so you can follow along, compare your own numbers, and see how you stack up.

Defending is the guardian position, and protecting things is my edge. So I’m not just playing the game again. I’m studying it, measuring it, and publishing every result on the way to a pro roster.

Read the full story →

FROM THE ATTEMPT / FILMED DAILY

Why this might actually work

01I’ve been on semi-pro rosters twice.

Earned my way from the second team to the first at one club, made the roster at another. The gap is fitness, not football.

02Defending is the thinking position.

Reading the game was always the strength. The coach who knows it best is the one training me now.

03Pressure is the plan.

Ten years building audiences taught me one thing: a public scoreboard doesn’t let you quit quietly. That’s the point of this site.

The player card, live

My actual level, measured. Compare yourself.

Every number below comes from logged training and filmed tests. It updates the night I log. No vibes, no rounding up.

–OVR
MARATDEF · DAY –
How the ratings work

VOLUME — minutes trained in the last 7 days, divided by 600 (a pro training week: six sessions plus a match). Train 300 minutes, score 50. CONSISTENCY — days trained in the last 28, divided by 24 (pros train six days a week). Train 12 of 28 days, score 50. ENGINE — my aerobic engine size: estimated VO2max from the latest cardio test (Cooper 12-minute run, 5K, or 10K), scored from 30 (untrained) to 65 (a pro midfield engine). The conversion formulas are the published Cooper and Daniels running formulas. PACE — fastest GPS top speed, scored from 20 km/h to 35 km/h. Pro match sprints hit 33–38. PROGRESS — ladder rungs completed, out of the 7 below: rung 6 is a semi-pro roster, rung 7 is pro-trial territory. OVR — the average of whatever is rated. Anything I haven’t tested yet shows as “—”, never a made-up number.

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Day of the attempt
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Training days, last 7
–
Current streak
92
Days to 10K · Oct 25
LAST 14 DAYS · MINUTES TRAINED

Gaps are real. If a bar is missing, I didn’t log that day.

WHERE THE BAR ACTUALLY IS
TOP SPEED
AMATEUR <25SEMI-PRO 28+PRO 33+ KM/H
SESSION DISTANCE
CASUAL <5SEMI-PRO 7+PRO MATCH 10.8 KM
AEROBIC · 10K
FINISH >60STRONG <50ELITE <40 MIN

Pro bands from published GPS match data. My markers appear as tests get logged. Want to place yourself on these rails? The Baseline Kit below has the exact tests.

The ladder

How far I actually get, in public.

1
Match fitness
Confirmed · Club announcement coming · Fall 2026
2
Aerobic base, verified
Registered · Ghosts & Goblins 10K, City Park, Denver · Oct 25, 2026
3
Soccer-specific benchmark
Yo-Yo IR1 test, filmed in one take · December 2026
4
Competitive minutes
Colorado Premier League open team · Winter 2026–27
5
UPSL open tryout
Spring 2027 · anywhere in the country
6
UPSL roster and real minutes
Semi-pro. The first rung that counts.
7
NPSL, USL League Two, or a pro trial
If rungs 1–6 land.

A word on the ladder. UPSL is semi-pro and open-age, which is why it’s the target: nearly 400 clubs, two seasons a year, and no rule that quietly ages me out. USL League Two, the league people usually name, is pre-professional and skews 18 to 23 with a hard cap on players over 23. I’d be fighting for one of a handful of overage spots against college athletes in their prime. It’s on the ladder, but it’s above UPSL, not below it. I’d rather you know the odds than find out later that I shaded them.

The film room

The film room doesn’t exist yet. You decide when it does.

Everything the videos don’t show: full match footage, the unedited coach conversations, the tryout tapes, including the ones that go badly. I build it the day 1,000 people are on the email list below. People on the list walk in first when the doors open.

Counting of 1,000 people on the list

The log

Get the Baseline Kit. Run my tests. See where you land.

The moment you sign up, you get the Baseline Kit: the five self-tests I use, with scoring bands from casual to pro, so you can put your own numbers next to mine. Then every week: what I trained, what the numbers said, and what went wrong.

  • The Baseline Kit, immediately: five tests, scoring sheet, pro benchmarks
  • My weekly numbers, including the bad weeks. Compare yours.
  • Tryout dates and outcomes before they become videos

Free. Unsubscribe anytime, obviously. Every signup moves the film room counter.