But at no time in that scoreless 2013 run did Canada have a chance as clear-cut, as golden, as the one that Cyle Larin spurned in the first half of the match in Carson, Calif. against El Salvador.

“We have three teams who are playing in MLS,” said Floro. “But only two or three players are starting. That’s a bad position for us, no?”

Mason Trafford scores. Hanson Boakai scores. Sadi Jalali scores. Jay Chapman gets his first start. Jordan Hamilton makes his first MLS appearance. Nana Attakora is sent off. FC Edmonton gave a whopping 512 minutes of playing time to Canadians in a 4-0 win over San Antonio.

But, while the Eddies started off the game shorthanded, it was the San Antonio Scorpions who finished with just nine men on the field. And they faced a sombre 4,000-km-plus trip home to Texas from oil-sands territory after receiving a 4-0 hiding from the Eddies to open the NASL fall season.

For the first time, FC Edmonton could have brothers on the field, playing the ball to each other, in an NASL game.

Midfielder Lance Laing says that he’s hopeful that he can play in FC Edmonton’s NASL fall-season opener before he needs to report back to the Jamaican national side.

FC Edmonton coach Colin Miller has been involved in professional soccer for more than three decades. He said Tuesday that, at no time in his career, has he been involved in an injury crisis as severe as the one FC Edmonton is in right now.

With the Canadian women’s national team losing a heartbreaking quarterfinal Saturday at BC Place to the English, this might be the week of weeks where our readers say “oh yeah, I guess MLS had games this weekend. Let me check the phone to see what the scores were.”

The revealing good news/bad news scenario in this week’s Quintessentially Canadian Power Rankings is found in this past weekend’s Vancouver Whitecaps match.

“I don’t want to be the player who was only called into one game,” he said. “The experience, it was huge. I gained a lot of experience from it. There are so many players there who have careers in Europe, from around MLS and other teams in North America. I can see that’s where I want my career to go.”