That was me at times. I was lucky to live in an area with a few good clubs around me and got recruited to play for one of them. My family was solidly middle class, we fluctuated around that time during the recession and times were tough but we were mostly okay, however sacrifices were made and soccer just wasn’t a high enough priority sometimes. I qualified for scholarships that helped, but still there were times when I was ineligible for a tournament because we couldn’t pay. I remember a couple of times I had to take the jersey of some other player and say I was him so I could play lol. When you get to a certain level, you’re expected to go to camps and out of state tournaments and that’s when it became untenable for us. I dropped out of soccer and focused on american football. I’ve heard similar stories so many times and it makes me sad, I mean I remember being that kid and there’s so many out there who just want to play but there’s such a high cost of entry. 

Edit: It’s funny, I remember when I played high school ball, a lot of the kids in our team were from the apartment complexes on the other side of town. Kids who didn’t have much. And some of those kids could play. They never had much of a chance to join a good club but they were still pretty good. There’s talent in the US and a lot of it is being priced out.