Yes, I have now seen two FC Edmonton games this exhibition season. No, I didn’t have to board a plane to get to this one. Edmonton had announced months ago that they would be playing the Victoria Highlanders at Foote Field in Edmonton but it was only recently announced there would be a game in Victoria as well, at the still-ironically-named City Centre Park in Langford.

First, I will repeat my most frequently-voiced criticism about FC Edmonton. Three weeks ago, I paid $34 for a general admission ticket to Commonwealth Stadium when I watched Edmonton take on Portsmouth. Today, I paid $13 for an assigned seat to watch Edmonton take on Victoria. It’s true that FC Edmonton isn’t quite as expensive a booking as Pompey, but general admission for the return engagement against Victoria will start at $20 before taxes and fees. It will probably come to twice the price to watch the same matchup in Edmonton as opposed to watching it in Victoria.

In spite of the bargain price and a spectacular night in Langford, attendance in Victoria was disappointing. Though not announced, it couldn’t have been much more than one thousand. The normally-strong Lake Side Buoys supporters’ section was literally down to one guy, who rode the traditional supporters’ bus in alone and blamed the bad supporters’ turnout on a combination of the weather forecast (as late as yesterday afternoon the prediction for today was rain) and the simple fact that August is a big vacation month in Victoria.

Even before kickoff there was a surprise, as it was announced that striker Riley O’Neill, late of SV Wilhelmshaven in the German Regionalliga Nord, would be starting up front for Victoria. My astonishment at a five-time goalscorer in the German fourth division moving to a post-season trial with a USL PDL club was such that I couldn’t believe it was the same Riley O’Neill: I wound up asking around the stands and on Twitter and eventually got confirmation that yes, it’s the same guy.

Next to the ex-professional O’Neill, the biggest name in Victoria’s lineup was Jordie Hughes. I’ve seem Hughes play in person a number of times and each time I’ve come away impressed. Hughes is a 5′10″ midfielder who plays bigger, runs like the wind, is the best amateur ballhander I’ve seen, was a star in the American college ranks before a leg injury, and bluntly deserves better than the USL PDL. He averages better than a goal every two games for Victoria from midfield and could certainly be a contributing player for most NASL or USL-1 teams. He’s 26 years old and not getting any younger, but his exile from the professional ranks is a mystery.

The first half was primarily an even affair. Victoria had the advantage of mostly playing an entire season together, with only a couple reserve players and newbie O’Neill rounding out a good first eleven. They were more-or-less equal with Edmonton athletically, and the dynamism of Hughes and O’Neill was effectively countered by Edmonton’s Shaun Saiko at defensive midfield and Paul Hamilton at fullback. Saiko was a former Middlesborough youth player, was predicted to be one of the team’s stars, and is living up to it, but Hamilton has to me been the surprise star of Edmonton’s lineup. Twice now, against Portsmouth and Victoria, I’ve been flabbergasted by Hamilton’s poise and off-the-ball effectiveness. Of all the Alberta metro players in Edmonton’s lineup, Hamilton is the one I’d predict to survive in the NASL.

Saiko, however, was clearly the star. Although lining up at defensive midfield he had a roving commission, playing the “destroyer” role best exemplified in the Canadian ranks by the young Julian De Guzman (and wearing Jules’s #6 into the bargain). No Victoria player could match Saiko’s pace and he mixed that with tremendous ball control, an extremely intelligent style, and a shouting, commanding presence in midfield unusual in a twenty year old. I was not struck by his tackling but then it occurred to me that Saiko was simply playing smart and athletically enough that he didn’t particularly have to tackle: he simply ran the opposing players out of options. He made the centre of the pitch a no-go zone for the Victoria attack, caused Riley O’Neill to die on the vine for want of service, started most of Edmonton’s best opportunities, and in the 38th minute scored the first and best goal of the game with a screaming effort from distance that rippled the top of the goal.

So impressed was I by Saiko’s first-half performance that, in spite of the uninspiring calibre of opposition, I was growing quite excited. Saiko had also been excellent against Portsmouth and got rave reviews for the game against Colo-Colo: maybe we really have something here. Only once did he falter, around the 27th minute, when Jordie Hughes began a run down the right flank and Saiko did not take the threat seriously enough. Saiko stuck back a bit and Hughes suddenly cut to the middle in front of him, splitting the Edmonton central defense and releasing a low shot that kissed just wide. This was the closest Hughes would come to troubling the scorekeeper, but he still had a dangerous all-round game.

Edmonton held their 1-0 lead into the half and almost immediately upon resuming play added to affairs. It wasn’t a dignified goal but it counted: Matt Lam had come on for first-half captain Chris Kody and promptly poked home a ball on a scramble in front of goal, giving Edmonton a 2-0 lead in the 48th minute.

Unfortunately, complacency began to set in. They got a few chances off the feet of Michael Cox and Milan Timotijevic but Victoria goalkeeper Brandon Watson put on a show, making more than his share of fingertip saves. Conversely, Jas Gill in goal for Edmonton (starting in lieu of Eredivisie veteran Rein Baart) inspired no confidence. He was a combination of nerves, mistimed aggression, and poor handling all night. In the second half, these problems began to come home. Jordie Hughes started a nice counter after an Edmonton chance and as Romaie Martin bore down on goal Gill came out much too far. Martin easily bypassed Gill and with the keeper out of the play had all the goal in the world at his feet. But he flubbed his shot, striking it through the box. Had Gill kept his head he would have intercepted the ball and all would have been well, but as it was he was out of position and Chris Arnett converted the accidental cross to cut Edmonton’s lead.

From that point on, play was even and tempers started to flare. Victoria right back Kevan Brown, a tall ginger drink of water, infuriated FC Edmonton all night long. He provoked Thiago Silva into a shoving match and a warning from the official as well as goading Timotijevic into a yellow card for unsportsmanlike conduct when the Serbian import petulantly threw the ball away on a throw-in. Brown was also conspicuously effective defensively and made Edmonton work for opportunities on the right: normally a reserve player for Victoria, Brown was regardless the most impressive of the players I’d never heard of.

The truculence came from other venues as well. After a Victoria chance was thwarted by a hard tackle from Paul Hamilton, Riley O’Neill took exception and got into a vicious if short scrap with Hamilton behind the touch line. The two exchanged words, shoves, and a little more before the referee charged in to restore order, assessing both O’Neill and Hamilton yellow cards.

Riley O’Neill was physically dominant but struggled to assert himself. Had he played for Edmonton matters might have been different, for the Edmontonians were being badly let down by their strike force. But aside from Jordie Hughes the Victoria midfield was unable to get traction against Edmonton, and Hughes is not the sort of distributing midfielder that gets his strikers chances in bunches. O’Neill was constantly active but almost entirely lacked service. There may have been rust on him, but in any event with his midfielders not providing O’Neill was unable to make his own plays. His best chance came around the eighty-second minute when a Victoria midfielder finally got a ball to O’Neill on the run. O’Neill outpaced the Edmonton defender easily and came up against Jas Gill, whose aggression for once served him in good stead. Gill charged out to meet O’Neill while the striker was still rounding his defender, and no sooner had he seen off one challenge than O’Neill was facing another. Gill more-or-less shoulder-checked O’Neill; not much of a play but he was able to outmuscle the German veteran and O’Neill scuffed the resulting shot wide. Immediately following this miss, O’Neill was substituted out.

By this point, Victoria had also removed Jordie Hughes, depriving them of the best part of their firepower. And they were soon down to ten men thanks to a careless challenge from reserve Davis Stupich. Meeting Paul Matthijs at midfield for a fifty-fifty ball, Stupich went in wildly with his leg up and caught Matthijs on the leg with his spikes. Matthijs went down in a heap and was immediately substituted, being helped off the field without putting any weight on his right leg. Stupich was given a straight red card.

Victoria kept up the pressure, to their credit. In stoppage time, Romaie Martin bore down the centre. Martin was up against Paul Hamilton for the ball and played Hamilton physically: so physically, in fact, that Martin actually wrestled Hamilton to the ground. I was not twenty feet away when it happened: Martin got his arms around Hamilton, who tried to ineffectively grapple back, and pretty much flipped the Edmonton defender over. But the referee kept his whistle in his pocket, only to pull it out when Martin was fouled by the Edmonton defender rushing back to Hamilton’s relief. A clear foul in the box, but what on earth was the referee doing even letting play get that far?

With no time left, defender Tyler Hughes stepped up to take the penalty. Jas Gill guessed the right direction but missed the ball: the game was tied at two. Edmonton actually mustered a half-decent chance in the dying seconds but for nothing: it was a 2-2 final.

It was clear that FC Edmonton had taken their foot off the gas when Matt Lam scored. All the same, Edmonton deserved a win: had Rein Baart been in goal instead of Jas Gill it would have been 2-1 at worst. The most egregious dip came from Shaun Saiko, who with the score 2-0 ceased his destructive attacking charges and let up defensively as well. He played too many poor balls to Victoria’s feet (one actually led to Martin’s chance and the ensuing penalty) and the sublime dominance he showed in the first half was almost canceled out by his mediocrity in the second. Most of Edmonton’s defense and midfield went in with less intensity and played the ball with less thought, letting Victoria sustain scoring opportunities. Although Brandon Watson was tremendous in goal for the Highlanders Edmonton had chances they ought to have scored on anyway and failed to put away.

There was more to be happy than upset about for Edmonton supporters. This is a young team, and many of its players won’t be around when the games start counting. Of the core parts, most acquitted themselves well. They coped with Jordie Hughes and Riley O’Neill, the sorts of players that are dangerous in the NASL, well. And let’s not forget that although they let Victoria back into the game, once it was tied they showed some surprising pluck in charging the Highlanders goal for a last-ditch winner. Given the skill level of these players, it’s a credible result.

But it could have been a win, should have been a win, and if Dwight Lodeweges isn’t letting them know that he isn’t doing his job.

Been a heck of a week for Canadian soccer. The Whitecaps finally – finally! – forgot to concede a late equalizer against the Montreal Impact in spite of their best efforts and actually beat the turds. The Toronto FC finally – finally! – outplayed and outscored a Central American team in the CONCACAF Champions League. Simeon Jackson’s big transfer was made official. Dwayne De Rosario scored against Manchester United, which hasn’t got the same ring as “Gabe Gala scored against Real Madrid” but ought not to be ignored.

So I’m going to talk about the Kansas City Wizards for a bit.

You’ve probably heard that the Wizards are considering rebranding their team. “Kansas City Wizards” has always been a bit of a silly soccer-mom name (better than the old Kansas City Wiz, but oh wooow), and the magical men from Missouri may be seeking a new name to go along with their new stadium. Given MLS’s well-known boner for faux-European names, I immediately trotted out old standards “Inter Kansas City” and “Borussia Monchenkansascity“, although Sam Bazzarelli wins the title with his suggestion of Kansas City City playing out of City of Kansas City Stadium. But even a bogus European-derived name (Atlético Kansas City? Nah, St. Louis will want that one.) would have to be better than the little-tykes-merchandise-peddling moniker like the Kansas City Wizards, right? Right?

You know what? No.

It’s long been a pet peeve of mine that North American soccer culture is too derivative of European football culture. This reflects itself in many MLS fans’ pants-crapping worship of the first-class European leagues. It’s shown off flagrantly every time someone insists it’s called football or that the players put on their kits and run onto the pitch for the match that will be a nil-nil clean sheet draw. You can hear it whenever a crowd in Canada demands to know “who ate all the pies?” when you’d need some sort of satellite network to find a soccer stadium in this country that actually sells them. Every time the goalkeeper is a bastard and the referee’s a wanker and the opposing supporters are tossers. Every time.

Above all, above everything else, we see this ravenous inferiority complex in the names of North American soccer teams. Not just Real Salt Lake, but Toronto FC? This is Canada, and Toronto’s football club is the Argonauts. Same to you, Vancouver Whitecaps FC, which seems determined to mesh both naming paradigms into a wholly unsatisfying mélange (thank god “Whitecaps” has stuck). D.C. United? FC Dallas? Do we have none of our own traditions whatsoever? Thank goodness for brave souls like the New England Revolution and the Philadelphia Union and yes, even those jokey, comic-book Wizards.

In this country, we waste valuable ink and breath wondering why so many of our native sons go to play for the national teams of England or the Czech Republic or Bosnia or the Netherlands (well, maybe not the Netherlands). Has it occurred to us that the reason Canadians seem to think in droves that European teams and traditions are better than ours is that a significant portion of North American soccer culture is predicated on exactly that? That if a Voyageur in the stands with five or six buddies sang something other than warmed-over EPL chants with “Canada” awkwardly spliced in, that if we were enthusiastic about how English we weren’t, and above all if we stopped getting worked up every time a soccer team was given the same sort of nickname as every other sporting club in this country, it might contribute to that elusive “national pride” we’re too often seen lacking?

But, sure, you bunch of traditionalists, forget about it. Name your team “Sporting Kansas City” and bellow whatever invective would seem at home in the cheapest, dingiest Liverpool pubs. We were a British colony once, right? Nothing stopping us from being one again, leaping on whatever shards of European culture drift over the ocean, and embracing our role as Europe’s farm team.

We Canadian soccer fans, east and west, have an annoying habit of blowing things up to proportions they don’t rightly deserve.

Tonight, Toronto FC will take on C.F. Motagua in what the Toronto faithful are really hoping won’t be a repeat of last year’s debacle against the USL Division One Puerto Rico Islanders. The U-Sector board is abuzz with hope and excitement but also concern – more concern than one usually sees for, say, FC Dallas. The Voyageurs, never your best bet for sober second thought but always a good dipstick for the country’s emotional oil, are burning with enthusiasm even absent the usual partisan napalm. On Twitter, Stretty Sam out-and-out calls it “a big match for Canadian soccer“.

Listen, when you’re relying on Duane Rollins to downplay the importance of a Toronto FC game, things are out of hand.

Of course, as a Canadian soccer supporter, it’s in my interests that Toronto beat Motagua tonight. It’s also in my interests that Toronto beat Real Salt Lake or the New York Red Bulls or pretty much any side that isn’t another Canadian team (I’d probably take the Reds over the CSL’s Serbian White Eagles, too). I’d quite like to see Julian de Guzman superkick Amado Guevara through the north stands into where the beer garden used to be, but that’s pleasure rather than business. My usual Whitecaps fan schadenfreude at seeing Toronto lose to a team from a country with a GDP smaller than my shoe size would be dulled ever-so-slightly by the whole Honduras factor, but intellectually I should want Toronto to emerge with a credible win in the CONCACAF Champions League regardless of the opposition.

(You may have noticed that soccer partisanship is not the most intellectual of activities. I know, I know. Bear with me.)

Now, as we know Toronto has a bad history with this tournament. They got over 20,000 fans out to their first ever continental match, more than twice the next-best attendance total that round, and lost 1-0 in what I can safely call the worst game of soccer ever played. The loss to the Puerto Rico Islanders, a team in the same North American pyramid as Toronto FC and therefore mathematically certain to be inferior, devastated the Toronto and Canadian sports scenes to such an extent that over 20,000 fans are expected tonight for a game against a team that sounds like a discount tequila label.

I feel a little dirty praising Toronto FC fans for their support, but the joy is that Canadian soccer fandom has moved beyond the point where a single game can break us. Indeed, if we survived the Montreal Impact’s Thích Quảng Đức job against Santos Laguna, and Toronto’s two years missing the playoffs, and Benito Archundia, and Benito Archundia again, and pretty much everything about Canada’s last World Cup qualification campaign, we’ve probably been past that point for some time. Toronto could lose by a converted touchdown and it wouldn’t mar the Canadian soccer landscape that badly. Moreover, if Toronto wins, they’ll be doing their job and who will be impressed? It would take an awfully long run and maybe a few flares in the Skydome for the Champions League to weigh down the bandwagon with new support.

If you’re a Toronto fan, your team may have a very specific stain to scrub off its honour and godspeed to you in that. For the rest of us, don’t try and tell me that cheering on the FC is a matter of national priority. We’re not infants anymore. We can survive a little fall down the stairs.

Until last night, the Whitecaps had not lost in their last ten matches and not lost at home for the entire 2010 season. It’s easy to forget with their completely horrifying scoring totals but the Whitecaps aren’t a bad team. One of the three or four best in the USSF D2, certainly, and a side that ought to make some noise come playoff time.

But Portland? God, it had to be Portland.

It all started out so well. We had history in our corner, with Portland going winless at Swangard Stadium since May of 2004. The team was playing well whereas the Timbers were no longer the lead pipe cinch as “best team in the second division”. Oh, sure, they have Ryan Pore, who is so far and away the league’s most valuable player they’re probably saving time and engraving his name on the trophy right now. But that’s one man against the best defense in the division. I was quietly confident as I sat down to watch the webcast on my dinky little laptop.

(Okay, that’s a lie. I was terrified. I’m always terrified when we play the Timbers, particularly of late, because they’re better than we are. It’s not the same as playing the Impact or Toronto FC, but the Timbers were for years the whipping boys of the Cascadia Cup and to see them incarnate as a USSF D2 powerhouse makes me quiver in fear.)

Teitur Thordarson was continuing his odd “we don’t need no stinking strikers” experiment and, with Randy Edwini-Bonsu on the limp due to a minor leg injury, took it even further than usual. Cornelius “All Smoke No Fire” Stewart was the only true striker in the lineup, getting the start up front with converted midfielder Nizar Khalfan. The bench was equally offense-deficient with not a single striker at Thordarson’s disposal. Don’t get me wrong, it was nice to see Ethan Gage recalled from exile, and Alex Semenets is a fine Residency midfielder with some finishing chops, but Teitur had apparently decided to win this one 0 – -1.

For the first fifty minutes, Vancouver and Portland just traded body blows. Even on a little laptop screen in Edmonton it was something to watch. It’s an axiom that the players never take a rivalry as seriously as the fans, but I can’t remember ever seeing Vancouver and Portland face each other and play any way other than their best. Portland, as you’d expect, had more possession but did less with it than Vancouver, which was able to penetrate the Timbers defense slightly more easily.

Although why I criticized Teitur’s selection I don’t know, because Khalfan was a dynamo. He brings pace and power, if nothing else, and that’s a pretty formidable conversation. Philippe Davies was playing on the right wing and had another of his increasing number of terrific games, but his most important play was rather a limp one. He tried a cross, probably to Stewart, but misplayed it and it skipped rather weakly to Khalfan. No problem, though. Nizar buried it. 1-0 Whitecaps, and one more goal for Vancouver than I thought they were going to get.

In the end, it was a feat of individual talent which swung things. Ryan Pore, that devilish son of a bitch, caught a nice through ball and went for a run. Greg Janicki has been one of Vancouver’s most reliable defenders all season but he was caught flat-footed on this one and was well behind Pore as he streaked in on a breakaway. Desperate, Janicki dove out and tripped Pore from behind, leaving the Timbers star to fall ass over teakettle and leaving referee Michael Edmunds no option but to call for a penalty and send Janicki off.

The only thing worse than a red card offense is a clear red card offense. Dammit, Greg, you couldn’t have given us some controversy? But no. Pore took the penalty, of course, and scored, of course, and it was 1-1.

Down to ten men, the Whitecaps kept their spirits up. Once again the game started to ebb and flow between the two goals, with the Timbers trying to press their advantage and Vancouver giving them everything they could handle. Vancouver played a slightly more chippy style, with Davies picking up a yellow card and very nearly grabbing another soon after (an astute Thordarson replacing the young Canadian midfielder with another young Canadian midfielder Alex Elliott), and conceded more free kicks than any of us would like to see. Ryan Pore took one of them in the seventy-first minute, lobbing a little ball into the area, easy enough for the defenders to deal with, and no! Jay Nolly! Get back in your goal! What are you doooooiiiiiiiiing? and it was 1-2.

Seeing Jay Nolly screw up, and screw up so egregiously, was a shock to the senses. Pore’s ball was uncharacteristically tame, from him, but Nolly had come thundering off his line to try and grab it. He never came close, never could have come close, and the ball kicked off a Whitecaps defender towards Portland centre back Mamadou “Futty” Danso. With some surprising power and precision for a player at his position Danso slammed it into the Whitecaps goal with Nolly out of the picture, and the Timbers had it won.

Oh, there were some last formalities, of course. The Whitecaps seemed to have had a bucket of cold water dumped on their heads and played their balls out looking for an equalizer. Nizar Khalfan (again) had the best chance, forcing a remarkable save out of Steve Cronin on a hard-struck low-driven ball. But here is where Teitur’s defense-heavy bench burned him. When Stewart was flagging, as he always does late in matches, there was no possible way to get more offense on. Thordarson ended up bringing in guys like Justin Moose and Takashi Hirano, players with some knowledge of how to move the ball up but none whatsoever on how to finish it off. It wasn’t enough.

So the Timbers won, again. They retain the Cascadia Cup, which they won last year under similarly heart-breaking circumstances. It’ll almost be a relief to get to MLS next season and have Seattle re-join the competition, because that way if Portland whips us again we might be able to blame a third club for the standings turning out badly, Montreal Impact-style. Because there’s no silver lining here. We lost because we do stupid things sometimes, and the mortal enemy got to keep his silverware in his last appearance on our home grass.

Soccer sucks.

Commonwealth Stadium in Edmonton is an excellent place to host a soccer game when it is full. Unfortunately, full for Commonwealth Stadium is 60,081 souls. The fewer people in Commonwealth, the closer you get to an average MLS or, worse, an average NASL team’s attendance, and the more the cavernous emptiness of the place starts to stand out. Chants absorbed by a battalion of empty seats. Seven-eighths of the sections in the stadium closed off and what remains still looking altogether too modest.

Last night, FC Edmonton drew 8,762 fans to watch the new local boys take on the famous foreigners, Portsmouth, for something called the “Edmonton Cup”.

What did those 8,762 fans get? Well, they paid not less than $34, after TicketMaster fees, for an adult ticket (the lowest price for general admission which wasn’t even available online). They got an absolutely spectacular evening to watch soccer. They got an opponent with a famous name but nothing else famous about them. With FC Edmonton sporting their home blues Portsmouth was even forced out of their iconic blue strip and into their white and red away kit, detracting just a little from the air of fame surrounding the opponents.

The team selection was even less inspiring. Nary a name in the lineup would have been familiar to even the most ardent observer of the English leagues. Midfielder Michael Brown was the most famous one to turn out, going all ninety minutes. Striker David Nugent also played ninety minutes. But the rest of the team from top to bottom was reserve players, truly dedicated League bench warmers like Nadir Ciftci, and the dregs of Portsmouth’s already rather poor organization.Five of Pompey’s starting eleven had never played so much as a league game. Anybody who paid their minimum of $34 expecting a display of classic football from European professionals went home horrified.

The game itself was a dreary affair. Even with their watered-down lineup Pompey was clearly more skilled and athletic than FC Edmonton, but the Edmontonians played far better as a team. They kept their shape more readily and read each other better, misplaying far fewer balls and getting some nice opportunities out of well-conceived passing plays. Edmonton actually opened the scoring seven minutes in courtesy former Canadian U-2o and current Canadian beach soccer striker Chris Lemire, converting on one of those lovely Edmonton buildups and forcing the ball (and himself) through keeper Jon Stewart. Stewart was badly injured on Lemire’s goal and left the game with suspicions of a broken leg, being replaced by Liam O’Brien.

O’Brien fumbled with the ball early in his relief appearance but eventually grew more and more steady. More importantly, as the game wore on Portsmouth’s superior athleticism and skill began to tell. The Edmonton players seemed to wear down in spite of the cool evening. Their aerial ability was nil, and Portsmouth started to take more advantage of it. Meanwhile, as Edmonton grew tired their first touch let them down more and more, and balls that once found players began to float into touch.

Portsmouth was due to equalize and did through a nice bit of corner play from Nadir Ciftci, alertly poking in David Ritchie’s curving ball. The teams were level both on the scoreboard and on the pitch, and the decisive match for the Edmonton Cup went to penalties (after some five minutes of confusion where the players seemed uncertain what was going to happen). Portsmouth prevailed, 5-4, and lifted a giant trophy it looked like someone had bought off the shelf of a sporting goods store.

The game was underwhelming, the players often incompetent. It was not of the calibre I’ve grown to expect from the North American second division. But the result was fair and Edmonton fans can say, with pride, that they held the FA Cup finalists to a 1-1 draw.

The 8,000-person crowd will raise a few concerned eyebrows. But it was a ferociously expensive mid-week game against a team that serious football fans can’t really take seriously except as a butt for bankruptcy jokes. There was a surprisingly strong Portsmouth traveling contingent of about thirty souls, mostly middle-aged and very courteous Englishmen who could not, physically, have been less impressed with Edmonton. The recently relegated Blue Army turned out more fans for an utterly pedestrian friendly across the ocean against an obscure club that hasn’t even played in the league yet than Canada gets for the Gold Cup! They were very nice men and women, all, and there for a good time, although when I left them it was after escorting them to a rather loud and quite obnoxious Budweiser “party tent” that I admit to leaving trails of fire running away from.

It was also encouraging to see the development of Edmonton’s supporters culture. The FC Edmonton supporters brigade is both small and nameless, but it seems to be growing and a few fans got caught up in the fun from time to time. The chant repertory consists mostly of old favourites with new words sung unconvincingly, but it improved palpably even as the game wore on (for chanting is the kind of thing that develops only with practice). After Jon Stewart was replaced none of us had any idea who the substitute goalkeeper was, but tall and dressed in pink he made an easy target, so we settled for calling him “Billy” in our heckles until @coxon was nice enough to Tweet me his real name. I dunno. “Billy” was funnier.

It was also my first look at the much-reviled FieldTurf installed at Commonwealth this year. At the time it went in, I opined that for all the guff FieldTurf gets from the peanut gallery it will probably be better than the terrible grass pitch Commonwealth was once cursed by. Now I’ve seen it and it’s definitely better. The ball was not afflicted by the random bumps and skips that were once the bane of soccer players in Edmonton. It stood up well to Edmonton’s mostly ground-based attack and there was never any hint that it was playing anything but perfectly. A skeptic may say that Pompey suffered an inordinate number of injuries in the match, but Edmonton was perfectly healthy and the Portsmouth injuries were generally on account of Edmonton players running into them, not the turf.

All in all, it was a dreary game but a lovely evening. The sun was shining, the fans were cheering, and a professional soccer team in Edmonton was playing before my very eyes for the first time in my adult life. They could have lost 7-0 and I would have enjoyed it anyway.

Last night, sitting in my office, I put up a somewhat agitated post on Twitter. “Okay, FC Edmonton,” I said. “I’ll make you a deal. If you draw Colo-Colo or better, I’ll get on the bandwagon. NOT ONE SECOND EARLIER.”

Well, they lost. Yet here I am. World Cup? What’s that?

FC Edmonton being what it is, there was no broadcast of any sort of the game, be it audio or video, online or otherwise. Updates came courtesy FC Edmonton’s own Twitter account and, after the fact, eyewitness reports in Edmonton newspapers and on the Voyageurs forum. The Edmonton Journal buried their article on the game to the extent that it doesn’t even show up on their soccer page. You had to be looking to see anything about this, and judging from the announced crowd of only 5,573 not that many people were looking. The crowd was predominantly Chilean, cheering on Colo-Colo with full voice, while the nascent FC Edmonton supporters section received the odd looks and ignorant comments that is the lot of any trace of supporters’ culture in this country.

With fewer than 6,000 fans the club can’t be anywhere near breaking even on the million dollar payroll and the million dollars they spent bringing Colo-Colo to town (Terry Jones of the Edmonton Sun estimates the club’s loss on the match at “well into six figures“). Moreover, Colo-Colo has replaced FC Edmonton as Vitória’s friendly opponent, allegedly on account of a team in eastern Canada welshing on a friendly with the Chileans and the club having guaranteed Colo-Colo three matches in Canada. To the extent that these friendlies are being held to prepare the team for a 2011 campaign, they are doomed to be a bit less effective now.

That’s the obligatory FC Edmonton bad news. For once, though, the good news outweighs it. First and foremost is FC Edmonton’s play. Thrashing the Montreal Impact reserves 3-0 was impressive, if hardly earth-shattering. But a 4-3 loss to Colo-Colo do the Edmontonians even more credit. It was Colo-Colo’s first game of their 2010-11 campaign, and it showed, but it doesn’t take away from the result. The game was somewhat sloppy and the Chilean champions were hardly overexerting themselves on the turf of Commonwealth Stadium, but all the same by all accounts FC Edmonton played them hard, took an early lead, and endured the Chilean fightback with great composure. The club has been bolstered by a few additional players, including former Ajax trainee and Canadian youth player Matt Lam, and while it’s hard to judge form without actually seeing the team there appears to be nothing but good news.

You’d have to be awfully optimistic to believe the great play will continue, of course. Phillip Araos of Colo-Colo bluntly said that he’d watched FC Edmonton practice and they weren’t that good. Their rosters of aging Dutchmen, a few promising players, and metro league plugs is still the same roster, even if Matt Lam has lent it some more skill and legitimacy. Nobody disputes that Dwight Lodeweges is a good coach but if he can mold that unit into something that’ll be competitive at the NASL level he’s a bloody miracle worker. But two games in they don’t seem to be as bad as the naysayers – and I was a very loud one – were saying.

Moreover, the attendance, while disappointing, is hardly devastating. The friendly schedule was only announced two and a half weeks ago, so there wasn’t a great deal of time for big ticket sales to materialize. 2,106 fans came through the gates of Foote Field for Edmonton’s first friendly against the Impact reserves, a Wednesday evening game against a completely inglorious opponent.  This isn’t a fantastic number but it was more than the opening night draws of USSF D2 Carolina, Miami, and Baltimore and the 2010 averages of Miami, Baltimore, and Minnesota. If FC Edmonton draws 2,100 fans a night in 2011, they won’t make money but they won’t be the NSC Minnesota Stars either. When the team is playing real games against real teams and has some publicity from their friendly season, though, attendance should increase.

Best of all, even with the financial dunking they’ve taken so far the owners seem non-plussed. In Terry Jones’s article linked above, co-owner Tom Fath seems at ease, if not exactly falling over himself with joy. Things are not going that well. FC Edmonton is by no means a certain success. But there have been a few small victories, and every great movement starts somewhere.

Edit: well-traveled Canadian soccer journalist Duane Rollins informs me via Twitter that the stutter-step Barbara took – where he hesitated rather than came to a complete stop – is still legal. The irony of criticising a referee for not knowing a rule when I may not have known the rule myself is not lost on me.

I’ve got a confession to make. I didn’t actually watch the first half of the match between the Whitecaps and the Carolina Railhawks. You see, the game was being played simultaneously with the third period of Philadelphia – Chicago, Stanley Cup finals, game six, and there is still enough hockey-lover in me that I wanted to see the Stanley Cup awarded (which eventually it was). When the first few Blackhawks had finished skating around with their prizes I flipped on the live feed of the Whitecaps game just in time to see the ball placed at centre for the start of the second half. And the two teams battled it out for forty-five minutes, and nobody scored, and the Whitecaps, who draw more than Bob Ross, picked up another single point for their growing collection.

There was some second-half excitement. Doudou Toure got in about five minutes of very exciting action before being substituted out after an unfortunate clash of heads. Marcus Haber did not score but finally began to look useful, which is a case of awkward timing given that this was the last home match in his loan stint as the Whitecaps now embark on the road for five (!) matches and Haber will return to West Bromwich Albion at the end of June. Martin Nash played a whale of a game defensively and probably left his feet more often in that half than I’ve seen him all season. It wasn’t bad, really, but not much went on.

Which is a pity because all the action was in the first half. Ansu Toure’s second goal of the season, for example, built off of a splendid passing play and tapped into the back of the goal, the sort of play that the overly-fancy Whitecaps have attempted all season and actually pulled off maybe once. Or Carolina’s goal, which is drizzled in a simply stunning amount of controversy. In stoppage time at the end of the first half, Zurab Tsiskaridze was rocked going up for a ball at centre and spent some time down in a heap without drawing a foul as the Railhawks attacked the other way. The ball was worked into the area by Etienne Barbara of Carolina, who had it out with Nelson Akwari in a running battle through the area. At length, Barbara went down and referee David Barrie pointed to the spot, as they say, without hesitation.

The fans thought that Tsiskaridze had been fouled. The fans thought that Barbara hadn’t. So imagine their hooting and derision as Barbara stepped up to take the spot kick, and imagine the derision that turned into disbelief and open horror as Barbara performed the infamous paradinha, the stutter-step penalty move that has been popularized by South American footballers but spread around the globe. It is sometimes effective but frequently considered unsporting and against the spirit of the game. But lots of things are unsporting and against the spirit of the game; what’s important is that the paradinha has also been illegal since May. It wasn’t exactly a headline-grabbing rule change but one hopes that, oh, I don’t know, a professional referee would have been aware of it.

Personally, watching the replays, I think that Tsiskaridze had the misfortune to be hurt on a fifty-fifty ball and wasn’t fouled (he returned to play in the second half and seemed no worse for wear), and that Akwari was grabbing Barbara enough that a penalty was a realistic, if a slightly soft, call. But the botched paradinha stuns me. The rulebook says that, if a player attempts the stutter-step, he should receive a yellow card and the kick should be retaken. Not exactly the end of the world. Etienne Barbara is a professional striker, one of the best players on quite a good Carolina team, and a Maltese international. If given the chance he probably could have converted a second penalty and he doesn’t play rough enough for a yellow to be a serious issue. This game probably winds up a 1-1 draw all the same.

But oh my god. David Barrie gets paid cash money to officiate soccer games and he doesn’t stay up-to-date on changes to the rules of soccer. Screaming about second division refereeing is an extremely popular pastime (and one in which I have indulged from time to time) and this is one of the reasons why. Too many of the referees seem less like professionals and more like enthusiastic amateurs – “oh, you want me to come ref a game Wednesday? Cool! I’ll hose off my cleats!” One can almost picture the referee and his assistants at half sharing orange slices like six-year-olds in a youth league, such is the amateurism. I will miss a great deal about the second division when Vancouver moves up to MLS – the stadium, the fans, the atmosphere, the exclusivity and snob value of cheering for a club most of the city doesn’t care about – but one thing I will not miss is the refereeing. Yes, the jump to Major League Soccer and, with it, major league officiating will doubtless ease many a worried mind…

…oh, crap.

Okay. So, while “does not know the rules” is a fairly major complaint, it turns out every soccer fan in the continent has something to hate about their referees. Actually, it’s more like every soccer fan in the world, and I can think of a few Irish fans who were shouting obscenities at their monitors every time I bitched about a referee not knowing what the rules are. Benito Archundia may be the worst referee in the world but he’s also good enough to serve at approximately one hundred million World Cups. Bad refereeing is a universal problem, it seems. One from which there is no escape.

Seriously, though. The paradinha has been illegal for three weeks. You’ll let me have my irrational bitterness on this one, won’t you? Pretty please?

It’s simple. It’s annoyingly “representative”: the mountains I can see, but the bits of the water are supposed to be waves? It looks like two Umbro logos tipped on their sides like Coke machines in a high school. The colours are weird, and it’s hard to imagine how it’ll look on an actual uniform. It is such a huge departure from anything the Whitecaps or 86ers have ever had that it forfeits twenty-four years of iconographic legacy.

I think it’s terrific. Look at that thing! The trend in North American soccer lately appears to be towards simple, unambitious logos: witness AC St. Louis, the Philadelphia Union, etc. I think this is the greatest trend of all time. If Real Salt Lake changed their name, MLS would actually look and sound classier than half the leagues in Europe.

In truth, I like it better than the current logo. I feared I’d be alone in this because it’s such a radical departure, but the reaction on the Southsiders forum is almost universally in favour and even the Twittersphere is approving. The old spit-curl-wave logo wasn’t particularly beloved among the fandom (the point of the shield was off-center! You have no idea how much that has fucked me up over the years!) and by disclaiming ambition and shoving-in-every-possible-symbol disease, this logo attains a certain timeless elegance.

If I could change one thing, I might scrub the ‘Vancouver’ and the ‘FC’. It’s the ‘FC’ I particularly dislike – we know you’re a football club, guys; no hockey team could pull off a logo like that. And you’d have to kill the ‘Vancouver’ in the name of balance. Just ‘WHITECAPS’ in big white letters. Yessss. Although that would run the risk of making it look like the icon for a construction company.

Speaking of construction companies, and on an entirely unrelated note, FC Edmonton unveiled their full slate of ticket prices today. The domestic friendly prices are unchanged from what I previously reported, and an end-zone seat at Commonwealth for the premiere international friendlies will set you back $25. Have you ever watched a soccer game from the end-zones at Commonwealth? I cannot physically describe to you how much I don’t recommend it. For a seat you can actually watch a soccer game from, you’re laying out $35. That’s a lot of pie.

They’re setting major-league prices for what is, so far, minor-league talent getting stomped into the FieldTurf by more illustrious adversaries. It would be nice to see Portsmouth or Colo-Colo, of course, if you were a soccer-starved Edmontonian. But if the fan pays $35 to see the famous team, watches the famous team win 6-0 over an overwhelmed FC Edmonton, and then is asked to shell out for season tickets the next year… that can’t be a good start, can it?

FC Edmonton will not play a league game for about ten months, and yet I’m already so far down on them I could probably finish their basement.

FC Edmonton’s roster came out last week, of course, and the only surprise is its mediocre nature. In addition to the previously-reported aging Eredivisie men, there is former Middlesbrough prospect Shaun Saiko, rejected by the English academies and returned to his home town. There are some uninteresting former members of the Vancouver Whitecaps academy, also Alberta natives. There are two Brazilians new to the North American professional ranks. 22-year-old Neto Miguel is a defender from São Paulo who moved to Canada at age 17, an engineering student at the University of Calgary, and a CIS player for two schools whose closest previous run to professional experience was four months training at Corinthians. 25-year-old Thiago Silva moved to Edmonton from Brasilia last year and is playing soccer at NAIT, a technical school not known for athletic achievement. To describe Miguel as “mediocre” would be to do him a favour and Silva is below even that level.

There are a few decent names. Saiko figures to be a decent second-division player and it’s good to see him back in soccer, and Sam Lam was quite a good CIS player with the excellent University of Alberta program who trialled in Seattle. Striker Kenny Sacramento is only 21 years old, saw some time training in Europe, and is a star indoor player with the Winnipeg Alliance of the CMISL. Kyle Yamada even played with Canada’s national soccer team! Well, our national beach soccer team. But none of them are men you can build a second-division team around and the lineup, filled out with players plucked out of AMSL rosters and bad CIS programs, would be an uninspiring USL PDL side. There are no players with extensive second-division experience even though there are some, such as former Aviators and Whitecaps midfielder Gordon Chin, who have Edmonton connections and are readily available.

This is intentional, believe me. FC Edmonton also announced their friendly schedule and what we see is a collection of USL PDL teams as well as the Montreal Impact (reportedly sending their academy rather than the first team) and, as a closer, Miami FC. Giving their organization credit, perhaps they know the level of players they have and are setting their sights accordingly. Certainly, this lineup is likely to be an affordable one, which is an admirable concession to the realities of professional soccer in Edmonton.

The only stunning thing about these friendlies is the price of a ticket: FC Edmonton will charge $25 for a reserved seat and $20 for general admission. This compares to a $26.50 seat at Swangard Stadium for the silver section – seats under cover and better than anything at Foote Field – and $20 for a reserved spot in the roughly-Foote-equivalent bronze section. The Victoria Highlanders, one of Edmonton’s friendly opponents, charge $17.25 for a non-premium seat.

The point is, a minimum of $80 in tickets to take the family of four out to a bad stadium and watch a team of metro league players play a friendly against semi-professionals with hardly a single name recognizable by even hardcore supporters is a big ask.

Of course, on the other hand stand the international friendlies. Portsmouth is the biggest name, hitting Commonwealth Stadium on July 21. But Chilean powerhouse Colo-Colo and Brazilian first division side Vitória are certainly far better opponents than a club of FC Edmonton’s calibre would seem to deserve. Portsmouth’s in a place financially where they might do anything for money. Even so, getting three teams of this calibre to travel such a distance can’t have been cheap for the FC Edmonton administration, and is if nothing else a sign that they’re willing to spend money to make money. Even casual soccer fans would show up to see Portsmouth, relegated or not, and while Colo-Colo and Vitória aren’t household names they’re at least respectable teams which will hopefully draw a crowd.

The Faths and Mel Kowalchuk have some experience with international friendlies: experience that isn’t universally positive but apparently hasn’t put them off. An Everton – River Plate friendly last year at Commonwealth Stadium was a bit of an attendance disappointment, bringing only 15,800 through the turnstiles at Commonwealth Stadium, but ticket prices were high and from a financial point of view the Fath brothers were sufficiently persuaded that they’re bankrolling FC Edmonton and these three international adventures.

So why am I worried? I’ve got a real emotional stake in FC Edmonton and would be gutted to see them fail, of course. And I see a lot of ingredients for a fall in this team as it’s consisted. Their website is enthusiastic but amateurish, running blog posts on the UEFA Champions League and fun but superficial podcasts. So soccer moms and casual fans – you know, the people who make soccer profitable in this country – go to a lousy stadium for soccer, pay USSF D2-level money to get in, and a team of amateurs and old men play obscure opposition, and if somehow the kids do get hooked news or decent on-line resources aren’t coming from the club so far. The international friendlies will be fun but they’re with opponents far superior to even an average Canadian second-division team. They are, essentially, gimmicks, and that may bring fans but it will also bring cynicism.

If FC Edmonton improves their media work, manages expectations, and bolsters the 2011 roster with the USSF D2 veterans that will let them beat Miami FC in their final game, they might get somewhere. If they could open the wallet and grab an old, familiar, respected name like Wes Charles or a can’t-be-long-for-Montreal Eduardo Sebrango (NOT RICK TITUS), even better. But this is a concerning start.

This is one of those nights where it hardly seems to be worth talking about the game.

The match was utterly dire, a bore of a scoreless draw between two clubs that could not possibly have cared less. The Whitecaps, playing predominantly a first team, came out like they had nothing to play for and knew it. The Toronto regulars were similarly disposed. Less frequent visitors to both lineups, like Philippe Davies for Vancouver and the TFC Academy kids, had a lot more heart and a lot more hustle but less skill. The catastrophic weather, with levels of rain that would make Vancouver blush and a pitch so slippery the Blackhawks and Islanders later skated on it, also inclined the veterans towards conservatism, and so boredom reigned.

I thought Marcus Haber deserved his red card. From where I was sitting at BMO Field, he began the slide after Toronto’s player had got rid of the ball, had his spikes up, and was generally launching an utterly reckless sliding tackle from a player who ought to know better. On a level I was relieved because it meant I wouldn’t have to watch Marcus Haber any more, but on another level it shattered Vancouver’s already slim chances of grabbing a goal. I thought that playing Cornelius Stewart and, later, Randy Edwini-Bonsu alone up front after Haber’s ejection was overly conservative on Teitur Thordarson’s part. But two records remain standing as a result of that conservatism. The Whitecaps complete an undefeated Voyageurs Cup with no wins, no losses, and four draws, and Toronto FC completes an actually triumphant undefeated campaign where they never conceded a goal.

So rather than talk about the game, let’s talk about something else.

As you’d know if you read this site (and if you don’t read this site how did you get this far?), I went to Montreal and Toronto for the away legs. In the course of my travels I hit Bar 99 with the Montreal Ultras after that particular disappointing draw. I hit the Duke of Gloucester with U-Sector to watch Canada take on Venezuela, and after this match I was snared by a Red Patch Boy on my way out of BMO Field and went to Shoeless Joe’s for a thoroughly enjoyable post-game. With apologies to the North End Elite and Tribal Rhythm Nation, I’ve spent more time around away supporters than half the supporters do the last two weeks.

And, you know, it’s the damndest thing. When I was in Montreal I laughed with the Ultras and talked about how, whatever our differences, one thing we had in common was that we all hate Toronto FC. Down at Shoeless Joe’s, I laughed with the Red Patch Boy who brought me in and we agreed that, however many differences we have, we both know that we all hate the Montreal Impact. I can imagine Montreal and Toronto supporters commiserating over a beer and saying that, for all their many disagreements, they know that at least they’re not fucking Southsiders.

It’s easy to forget for those of us who spend more time trolling the discussion boards than actually meeting with our fellow supporter, but ultimately, we’re all coming to matches for the same things. We want to hang out with old friends and make new friends and sing and chant and make a ruckus and cheer our team on to victory, and with all of that common ground the colour of laundry we’re cheering for is really a very minor detail.

I don’t want to get too maudlin here  (although I’m writing this with a fair bit of liquor in me), but I think that we sometimes exaggerate the rivalries forming between us supporters groups. A bit of heat is a good thing. A Whitecaps game, to me, means more when it’s against the Impact or the Timbers than it does against AC St. Louis or the Carolina Railhawks, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. But that’s not an excuse to go around picking virtual fights with the Timbers Army or the Montreal Ultras and generally being an asshole. There are few enough Canadian soccer supporters in this country as it is without dividing ourselves further and driving each other away with a constant avalanche of hostility and abuse masquerading as rivalry.

There’s nothing wrong with giving each other the gears, or building those rivalries. When I call Toronto FC supporters “plastics”, it’s a shot but it’s meant in good spirits. When Toronto FC supporters call us Whitecaps fans pot-smoking hippies, I can take it in the same light. Nobody is saying that everybody needs to join hands and sing and dance, or even particularly get along. Just that we can’t let the comforting veil of Internet anonymity divide our too-small community and turn us all into complete cocksuckers.

When I whine like this I’m not so much referring to guys at usector.ca talking shit about their opponent du jour, or the pro-Montreal blogs saying pro-Montreal things, or similar internal affairs. I’m talking about the fact that even the Voyageurs forum has, in some parts, become a cesspool for intra-club rivals sniping at each other. I’m talking about the fact that, more and more, the sort of soccer fan you are in this country depends on which of the big three clubs you support, and if you’re a neutral (or, God help you, a third-division supporter) then you’d better just get out of the way before you wind up crawling under the bed and sobbing at how stupid a bunch of otherwise intelligent people could be.

It bears repeating. When we actually meet up, be it under the national team banner or because some of us are going to support our club on the road, we tend to get along pretty well. Almost every story you hear about particularly infamous club supporters runs something like “yeah, on-line he’s a real asshole but he’s pretty cool in person”. It’s early days for Canadian soccer fandom, and for the most part we don’t actually hate each other quite yet.

There is, after all, quite a large gulf between rivalry and hatred, between wanting Dwayne De Rosario to get hit by the team bus and wanting the supporters to get dragged under the wheels with him. I hope that we never bridge that gulf, because one of the best assets of the Canadian soccer community is that, for all the countless differences between us, we are a community. The Canadian soccer world is united in a way that most countries can never be because, ultimately, we’re all in the same boat. We’re all cheering for a team ranked sixty-third in the world when most of us think that’s too high. We all support clubs that are in leagues of dubious stability and we all have a history of watching teams we loved suspended or killed off. Whether you root for the big bad MLS boys in their soccer-specific stadium or the Canadian Soccer League team whose games are sporadically canceled because the pitch has plywood under it, you’re an underdog.

The success of Montreal, Vancouver, and Toronto is terrific. The future success of Edmonton, Ottawa, and others is something to hope for. But if that success comes at the cost of fracturing the Canadian soccer world and destroying the unity that brought us the Voyageurs Cup in the first place, it’ll be of questionable value. For now, I’ll rejoice in the fact that when we gather, nobody can celebrate the beautiful game like a Canadian regardless of what colour he wears. I’ll cheer for Toronto in the CONCACAF Champions League not because I like them but because they’re Canadian and that’s what counts. I’ll adopt the Red Green philosophy: “remember, I’m pulling for you. We’re all in this together.”

And next time some opposition fan on some message board says something so stupid and inflammatory it can’t help but be destroyed in rhetorical rage, I’ll take a deep breath and I’ll leave it alone. And I hope you will too.