After “disheartening” 2015 season, FCE captain Watson says things have to change next year

At the end of the NASL season, Albert Watson had a lot to think about. His wife and him were expecting a child. After spending three years with FC Edmonton, he was a free agent. And he was frustrated that the team had yet to make a playoff breakthrough in that time.

And he admitted that it hurt to watch the Ottawa Fury, a team that FC Edmonton had knocked out of the Amway Canadian Championship each of the past two years, go on a run that took it all the way to NASL final.

So, he wondered if his time in Edmonton was done, if he should take a new challenge. But, after weeks of reflection, he made his decision: He will remain with FCE. The team announced Thursday that Watson signed a new deal.

“Last year, I said in several interviews that I wanted to get into the playoffs,” said the Eddies captain. “And it didn’t happen for us this year. I was a bit disheartened, like I think everyone around the team was this year. Part of me felt that maybe it was time to move on, to take on a new challenge. I really thought hard about it.

“Because, in the three years, we really haven’t done anything. You can’t say that you’ve done anything until you get into the fight for the cup.”

Watson is an analytical person; he replayed the games over and over his mind. With the Eddies finishing two wins out of a playoff spot, he lingered on two home games — fall-season losses to Atlanta and Fort Lauderdale at Clarke Field. But he also thought about the team’s injury crises, the games lost to international duty, and how easily the team could have found those handful of points needed.

“And I thought to myself, I want to go to the championship with Edmonton. It was Edmonton that gave me such an opportunity, it was Colin (coach Colin Miller) who brought me in as the captain, it was the owners here who gave me a chance.”

So, he thinks a lot of things have to change around the club next season. He believes that all facets of the club, from the players to the promotions people to the ticket sellers, have to be more unified. He believes that the team itself has to “be a bit more cutthroat.” There has to be ruthlessness on the field. The Eddies have to re-establish that Clarke Field is a miserable road trip for everyone else in NASL to take. Two seasons ago, the Eddies lost just one home game in the fall season; the team needs to to return to that level of dominance.

And their Northern Irish captain will have the disappointment of 2015 fuelling himself for the 2016 campaign.