Nope, don't really care. I do appreciate that some are starting to see that XYZ league isn't the only end of the rainbow.
What you want is a club that's close to your house, has a good coach, the club backs the coach, + the team is winning / having fun.
All the rest will work itself out over time.
I don't even hate the club hoppers. As long as it's the kid pressing to play at a higher level or with a different team. (Not the parents pushing for it.)
Norcal lurker/"newbie" with my 2nd and final post on this thread, just to add some current flavor to this thread (though I do like the war stories -crush).
My daughter has been with the same club from the start. Just so happens that we were lucky enough that the local club is the biggest baddest club in California (all due respect to SD Surf and whomever the new Socal "superclub" is) at developing talent and they do it playing soccer the right way.
The norcal ECNL, ECRL, NPL standings speak for themselves in regards to being the top club in norcal. As such, it has been a constant stream of incoming talent that my daughter has had to compete with to maintain her spot. Steel sharpens steel though and my daughter has continued to develop on whatever level of team she's been at in the club.
I've known for a year now that due to life changes/forthcoming move our new local club would now be a GA club. Last year most of my daughters former teammates and good friends left the most dominant club to join other ECNL teams (all very good players but frozen out of the completely dominant ECNL team) as it was the first year of ECNL made increasingly chaotic because we had a local club granted new ECNL status. The politics of the stories I have heard have been very interesting and not something that I have any desire to have to deal with (though the dads who I still consider very good friends keep recruiting).
The time for the move has finally come. After lurking this board a long time, finally registering for an account and lurking some more I came to the exact same conclusion that Carlsbad posted above.
If your local club has a good coach that is backed by the club and has good teammates then the rest will work itself out over time. Will be moving on from the superclub rather than commute and live out of my car. I have nothing but positive things to say about the superclub as they did an excellent job with my DD. Our new local club "only" has a GA team but it does have all the right ingredients as per my above statement.
I'm sure I'll still hear about whats going on in ECNL from my friends and other GM dads, but all of that is just noise.
Best of luck to all the GOATS and their dads/moms.
Life is too short to be scoreboard/standing watching (even though many of the dads that do that are my good friends now at other ECNL clubs)