SC Soccer Forums SCSoccer.com Forums Club Soccer & ODP ECNL/Harry

None of the kids are getting training worth the $6,000 to $8,000 turn key costs I have been quoted by ENCL parents. It is the same schedule of training and same trainers when the cost was, $2,000, turn key.

Traveling with your kid may be worth it, but that can be done in other ways.

If someone wanted to buy enough exposure time to get your kid a D1 shot, and that is their goal in life, it may be worth it.

If it is the scholarship chase the person is after, the math does not add up, though.

This is a forum for opinion, obviously mine is wrong to many people.

In my humble opinion, and based on my experience with them,
CESA long stopped being about training.

For them it's recruiting. Who can we lure to come to us, so that we can make our teams better.

If they were successful at training, this would not be so important.

For us, the return with this was, we often did not have enough players to proctice properly because so many of the players were from out of town, they were never at all or many of the practices, only the games.

You do not build successful TEAMS this way. CESA could get away with it, if the team simply had more talent than the opponent.

Appears now, against ECNL, they do not have the talent.

At some point, real trainers/programs relegate parents' checkbooks and opinions to secondary status and focus on what they should KNOW is right: That TRAINING is the common denominator in successful player development scenarios, and competition is nothing more than a measuring stick for how well it's getting done.

Seems like the money, travel, and headache is plentiful for a bunch of players that at best will play at D1AA schools and have no professional futures. Bad return on investments if you ask me! No wonder the economy sucks

Bomber, I agree 100% with your post. During our two year experience with CESA and ECNL, we felt like the training was excellent; however, we saw a team transform from all players located in the upstate or at least close enough to travel to every training session to a team where many players were located too far away to make even one training session/week. Local players who made the team successful were displaced to allow room for the recruitment of out of town players who couldn't take advantage of team training offered at CESA. This is not player development or good training - it's recruitment, which brings in more training fees and name recognition for CESA. I understand recruitment at the college level where players are on scholarship; however, at the club level the focus should be on player development instead of name recognition. CESA coaches continually say they are always looking for more talented players to improve the team; why can't the focus be on developing the current level of talented players who played together for years? It appears the allure of having CESA earn a national ranking has overtaken what should be the positive effects of youth sports; player development, team commitment, self-esteem, and quite simply a love for the sport.

When we we're members of CESA thing. If CESA had 2 players of equal skils one from Greenville, one from Columbia, they were taking the one from Columbia. Why? Too increase their footprint.

Will someone please call the CESA office and ask them to ask Harry to post and answer some of the many questions on this thread?

And also, ask Harry to ask JAK to post.

Thank you.

CESA vs ECNL of recent is not going well for the CESA teams.

What is the difference now as compared to Regionals, where CESA had a number of teams do quite well?

Competition is quite a bit tougher in ECNL than R3PL