"U11 in Dec2013/Jan2014, according to the National's rules. "

To offer clarity , they do not have to be U11 in December/January when Dicks is actually played. They had to be U11 in the qualifying tournaments the prior summer using the usual age based brackets every team is subject to that prior year-nothing special. It is great Crush won in Florida and their parents that committed to spend all that money for the U11s but keep it in perspective - they are not really "Nationals" in the true sense of other sports - it is a promoter who set up a self feeding, brilliant system. It becomes clearer with the fact that most older ,better clubs do not play in Dicks despite winning in one or more of the qualifying tournaments. The NDP system actually "broke" the few townie travel tournaments because top Club teams saw some of the purely recreation tournaments 2-3 years ago as quick entrance to the Dicks National tournament by going and beating up on local teams. Example - Beach Lax in Md was the end of season tournament for the Baltimore area clubs until promoter signed on to be a Dicks qualifying tournament and now it is mostly clubs. The teams from NY all went down and literally beat up town rec teams to get a slot at the tourney and then claim to be champions.