*Edit: this was a snarky joke post. I should’ve known it would be taken serious. You can read it (or not) and move on.
My son played on a pre-ecnl team this season that will now play ecnl next season. (And yes they actually played in the pre-ecnl league so “pre-ecnl” on our team name wasn’t completely a slimy marketing ploy …for those chomping at the bit to comment on that). And so all the great soccer minds in this forum have me questioning if we’re bad people for it. Like literally I feel stupid and guilty and like we’ve sold our souls. Not to mention we are surely being scammed just so the club president and youth director can get richer and richer while my expectation that my son will get a full ride to Cl. So I’m now questioning the week before tryouts (which of course are a joke and poorly run and only for the big fast kids to get picked according to said great soccer minds) if maybe instead we should just go around town (but not too far!) and guest train with every local (non-alphabet team and definitely no AD or RL in the acronym!) to find that perfect (likely non-existent but this forum says they exist so they must but they need to be South American not a British accent scammer) volunteer coach that’s going to focus on my kid’s development and let my kid play every position (but somehow give all the players equal playing time at every position) and also ensure that it’s all about fun, because hey he’s only 12, oh and for under $1k per year of course, oh and all practices and games will certainly be within a 30 minute drive max, and my kid will still develop at a better rate than just fighting for his starting position on the ecnl team that actually has the better coaches and better facilities and my son actually enjoys more because he likes the challenge. But the ecnl route will certainly bankrupt me and we’ll suffer through a year of hardship and traffic jams and being scammed so the club’s director can drive around in his/her Escalade and the club CEO in his/her yacht …right?! So here I am on this forum trying to figure it all out the week before tryouts.