Again, no different than last year. Most of the clubs were having "calender year" practices, open to all players, well ahead of their tryout dates, and those were starting in November. All of the big clubs had their top teams secured long before their tryout dates. Tryouts for these clubs were to fill their lower teams. If your kid had a dream of playing for one of these clubs top team, they better have practiced with them a couple of times before tryouts, ... and caught the coaches eye. I would argue that, at least for the clubs like Surf, it's been that way for years. It would be very rare for someone to just walks on at tryouts and makes the top team. That is all preordained. This is nothing new. The then ECNL clubs, and now DA clubs are following the same pattern as they always have.