@anotherparent posted:At the end of my son's 15U summer, we got a message on our answering machine from someone saying they were from Arsenal, would our son be interested in playing for them next season (we are nowhere near NJ). We had no clue what they were. We figured, o.k., we'll do some research into this tomorrow. The next day my father had a heart attack, we were at the hospital with him for 2 weeks, then life moved on, we never followed up, son stayed with his same organization. Since I've learned more about Arsenal and how such teams work, I've wondered, did we miss a great opportunity? or dodge a bullet? We'll never know, which goes to show that with coronavirus or any other life event, you can't tell what kind of fork in the road it will prove to be.
Sounds like that was their National team - made up of kids around the country- which is totally separate from the NY/NJ/CT/PA more local Arsenal group. Two different guys. One does National and the other does local.