Icelandic club KR Reykjavik and midfielder Oskar Hauksson cut their losses Friday; the one-year loan deal that had sent the winger to FC Edmonton was terminated before the NASL season was a month old. The Eddies say they came to an "amicable" agreement with both the player and Reykjavik.

Sometimes, dammit, don’t you just love this game? How it could turn enemies into strange bedfellows? How Smits’s agony of defeat against the Impact a little more than a year ago could end up having the chance to be part of the greatest victory thrill in Canadian club soccer history?

“France offered us this game, and I think it’s for a reason,” said Herdman. “I think it’s because we’re a bogey team for them.”

So, when you recall Tuesday night’s epic CONCACAF Champions League semifinal second-leg match between the Montreal Impact and Alajuelense — a nail-biter of a game in Costa Rica that saw the Impact “lose” 4-2 but hang on for a 4-4 aggregate score, with the edge being away goals — you should also stop and think back 11 months.

Smits — who won the NASL Golden Glove last year for posting the best goals-against average in the league — will leave for Costa Rica after the Jacksonville match. His loan only extends to April 8, so he will be back in Edmonton for the April 12 home opener vs. Carolina.

It was a perfectly windy day in Fort Lauderdale, as the Canadian national team was able to nurse a one-goal lead after an early Marcus Haber goal — and came out with a 1-0 win over Guatemala.

But, I did want to take the chance to catch up on a couple of things: The elimination of Canada’s U-17s from the U-17 World Cup picture and the second instalment of The 11’s Quintessentially Canadian Power Rankings.

Former CSA president Dominique Maestracci accuses MLS of breaking promises it had made to the association; and he says the relationship with the USSF was not a cooperative one...

Canada has only qualified for the World Cup once — in 1986. But, thanks to a bunch of players who had honed their skills in the Canadian Soccer League, a scrappy and determined national team got very close to making it to USA 1994. That represented the last time Canada got close to a World Cup. We wonder what would have happened to us if the first-division Canadian league would have survived...

With so many new, fresh faces on call in the two Florida friendlies, of course it would be the elder statesmen who would score both goals. Dwayne De Rosario, currently without a club, headed home a goal in the first game and scored from the penalty spot in the second.