Really, it came down to Venezuela burying its chances, while the best Canadian attempts went off the woodwork.

FC Edmonton announced Friday that midfielder and Canadian national-team veteran Nik Ledgerwood has extended his contract and will remain with the club through the 2017 season.

So, of course, in its first friendly since elimination from World Cup qualifying, the Canadian side would score three goals over the course of six minutes.

With a little less than a month to go in the NASL regular season, Watson and his FCE teammates will clinch a playoff spot if they beat the visiting Tampa Bay Rowdies Sunday afternoon. If they clinch, it will mark the first time since 2011 that the Eddies have qualified for the post-season.

Michael Findlay, the interim coach of the national side, knows that he can’t put a stop to the neutral-site games, but wants to limit them as much as possible.

FIFA confirmed Tuesday that it has levied a series of fines and warnings to the Canadian Soccer Association due to poor fan and player behaviour during the recent series of World Cup qualifiers.

But, let’s move our focus back to the USL.That league’s regular season is done. But the playoffs got underway this past week, and we’d be remiss not to mention a few Canadian standouts:

Fisk, who came on as a second-half sub, took a pass from fullback Shawn Nicklaw and then fired the ball across Eleven keeper Jon Busch and into the corner of the goal.

You don't have to really be an expert in reading between the lines to come to this conclusion: Michael Findlay wants to use his time as the interim coach of the Canadian men's national team to prove that he deserves to be the side's full-time boss going forward.

“The guys are gutted in the change room right now,” said FCE coach Colin Miller. “We came here for three points, we only got the one. But we can take a lot of positives from this game.”