But the Eddies’ play over those 180 minutes made a lasting impression on the Gambian player, who has since moved on to the San Jose Earthquakes. So, when his twin brother, Sainey, was looking for a club, Sanna gave the Eddies a glowing review.

The Canadian defender, who has spent time with Toronto FC, the San Jose Earthquakes and, more recently, D.C. United, is now a member of the San Antonio Scorpions. The NASL side announced the deal Wednesday, killing rumours that had linked Attakora to the New York Cosmos.

Granitto comes from a sporting family. He was born in El Salvador to Argentine parents. His father, Gustavo, ran a tennis academy and had been assigned by the International Tennis Federation to Central America to help develop the game there. Granitto lived in El Salvador till he was five, then his family moved to the United States. Granitto would excel at soccer and would play his way onto the roster at Florida Gulf Coast University, and helped that team to its first-ever NCAA tournament appearance.

It’s not hard to pick out Oskar Orn Hauksson out of a crowd of FC Edmonton players wearing the team’s brand new blue and black training tops. He’s got his long blond locks tied into a knot atop his head, in a design that makes you wonder if there’s such a thing as a viking-samurai crossover.

“He has a terrific attitude,” says Miller. “And he runs faster than I can drive my car. We are going to give him an opportunity; he also had English Premier League experience.”

And it’s at the USL level where the issue of free agency — the divide that separates the union and MLS brass — might be most important. If players can be “parked” in the lower division for the lives of their contracts, including team options, then it’s hard to call USL anything else but a farm system. But, if players who are with MLS teams but don’t get the chance at first-team MLS football are offered the chance to move on, then we can argue that truly, USL is a system that puts the development of the player, first.

FC Edmonton announced that it has come to contract terms with Gambian attacking midfielder Sainey Nyassi.

After spending the 2014 season as teammates at Finnish second division side AC Oulu, Canadians Dominic Oppong and David Monsalve both tried their luck in the NASL.

There is something I want to address, though. Something I’ve thought hard about in the process of doing these interviews. We’re in that part of the NASL and MLS silly season (and right near the closing of the transfer window). So, the message boards and Twitter are filled with jokes about the number of Canadian players on Unattached FC. Many fans wonder “why doesn’t player A try to join NASL Team X or MLS Team Y? Why doesn’t he take a chance to play halfway across the world?”

So, after the May 24 home game, FC Edmonton will only have one home game at Clarke Stadium (July 26) before the second week of August. That’s a heck of a long time to be out of the eye of the local media and soccer community.