FC Edmonton got two huge second-half goals in Indianapolis, and is now just two points back of the Tampa Bay Rowdies for fourth spot in the NASL overall table with a month and a half left to go in the season. That fourth spot represents the final post-season slot in the league.

It’s the nature of Canadian soccer supporters to focus who is not on a roster rather than who’s on a roster.

When FC Edmonton travelled to Indiana for its final game of the NASL spring season, the team was depleted. Defender Mallan Roberts and midfielder Lance Laing were away on international duty. The team was ravaged by injuries.

“I’d always said Edmonton felt like home,” said Ameobi, who is the joint top-scorer on the team with seven goals this season. “When they told me they wanted to extend my contract it wasn’t something I had to deliberate long over. I went home, talked to my family, prayed about it, and I felt like this was the place I was meant to be.”

Remember that this isn’t the first time that an NASL coach announced he would be leaving his club at the end of a season in order to take an MLS job. Back in 2011, the Carolina RailHawks were absolutely savaging the rest of the NASL, and head coach Martin Rennie was rumoured to be going to a number of MLS teams.

“The more I see the goal [on the replay monitors], the more I like it,” Watson joked after the match. “And the more I think I’m wasted as a centre back.”

We are working to prepare the autumn issue of Plastic Pitch. And, as has become custom, we prep for the launch of the issue by previewing one of our stories on The 11. We present an abridged version of the Q and A we did with Ottawa Fury coach Marc Dos Santos.

On Sunday, both FC Edmonton coach Colin Miller and Minnesota United boss Manny Lagos will rue how the players in their teams’ respective walls got out of the way when free kicks were hammered in their direction.

“But we’ve created a monster here, in terms of players getting call-ups to their national teams. It’s a situation we’ve never had to deal with before this season, but it’s also an honour for the club.”

But, as more and more North American Soccer League players get the calls to play for their countries, that league should also be subject to the same scheduling scrutiny. In fact, you could argue that NASL teams are less equipped than the MLS teams are when it comes to dealing with games on international dates.