All joking aside this is not about labels for yet another league for me, my players has no interest in any of that. Really a bigger picture kind of thing, my hope is that people can take a objective look at what is really going on and focus on what's important; the player(s) not the club, governing bodies, leagues, or any of this marketing fluff stuff.
#Rant-on
When clubs or orgs can't get what they want or along in a league; CSL, SCDSL, ECNL, DA, Presido instead of working things out some give up, pack up, split off and form another splinter league. To me this is a disturbing trend.
This is the reality; a bunch of competing governing bodies with different mandates, doing things "there way" marketing a better "Development" mousetrap. Everybody argues adnauseam who'd better, right or wrong and we have a clusterF***. This is what youth soccer is; usys, usclub, and ussda all doing things "there way" with no sharing, hierarchy. united vision, or getting along, competitor's with different agenda going for $. There are "commissioners" or management people in these leagues that are basically "politicians" that sever special interests be that more "$" or some other ideology that the customers don't have much of a say in .
Forget all that noise, Instead of all that we just need a open circuit players "leagues" that everybody can participate in. Ayso, non afflicted Latin teams, clubs, da, ECNL, whatever doesn't matter.
Just has to be open, affordable with a regulation and promotion system that's all. Can be grouped by geographic, regions, area or whatever. Can be three divisions or whatever else is needed so the competition is spread out. The focus has to be the player(s), not revenue collection, tournaments, scholarships, who is "Top's" or any of other stuff which is just a waste of time and resources IMO.
The amount of time (all day for a single game for example) and $ we spend to play in the current "Elite" leagues is ridiculously, one game 100+ miles away in Bakersfield, SD, or out of state for < 90 minutes of playing time is like standing in line at Disneyland all day for a few short couple minute "thrill rides". Fun once or when you're very young but get's old very quickly.
Forgot about investing so much time and resources to get a potential college "scholarship" through club soccer instead invest those $ in something that guarantees to pay back and provide the $ for that education.
#Rant-off
When our daughter started to play "travel soccer" many moons ago there was but one league and some small local grass roots clubs with some really dedicated people involved so we thought lets give this a try. Things worked well there was regulation and promotion, cut and dry, no drama. Every year since then things have gotten more complicated with the merger of the clubs, the affiliated model, the explosion of all these different "leagues" all competing with different agenda & motives.
She's has been fortunate to have some great coaches, good competition, fun traveling, success at the different tournaments, etc but will tell you that teammates and coaches are the only thing that really matters.
Leaving the local club for better competition was a very hard decision for her few years ago but she felt if she wasn't progressing she would regression, turned out to be good decision and she progressed at a good rate. Our local club which she loved couldn't get into any of the these "Closed elite" leagues because they just didn't have the resources or political clout to play the game even though the teams where good enough on a competitive basis and had the track record to back that up. Instead players started to slowly leave for what they thought we're greener pastures, teams broke up, and most the players didn't last long in their new environments for what every reasons, think she might be one of the only ones still playing in these leagues since those days. Youth soccer it seems is way more complicated than it should be IMO, I wish I didn't know some much about that.
