FCE loses to San Antonio on stoppage-time goal in extreme Texas heat

Antonio Rago

Hans Denissen opened the scoring, and he closed the scoring with a stoppage-time dagger to the hearts of the Eddies.

Denissen opened the scoring just five minutes in, and then scored the stoppage time winner as the San Antonio Scorpions got a 2-1 victory Saturday in the Eddies’ first-ever visit to the new Toyota Field.

Denissen headed his first effort off the woodwork, then followed his chance to bury the game winner just before the referee blew the final whistle of the match.

“I want to see it again, but the ball just trickled across the line,” said FCE coach Colin Miller. “He had a fantastic first chance off the post. We weren’t first to react to it.”

The Dutch forward scored on what were really San Antonio’s only two scoring chances of the game. He opened the scoring five minutes in, one-touching a chip over the head of FCE keeper John Smits.

The match was like watching a movie trailer, then going to the movie — and realizing all the good bits were in the trailer.

In the first 10 minutes of FC Edmonton’s second-to-last match of the NASL spring season, both the host San Antonio Scorpions and the Eddies found the net, and there looked to be plenty of open spaces at the new Toyota Field.

But, for the next 80-minutes, the teams settled into a tactical chess match in the Texas heat; there were few scoring chances to be had — and neither San Antonio keeper Jeremy Vuolo or Smits were called upon to make a difficult save. San Antonio did bundle another ball in the net, but that was washed out by a foul that preceded the ball entering the goal.

For the Eddies, on the road in punishing heat — the kind of weather never seen in Edmonton — limiting San Antonio was a big ask.

“I’m devastated,” said Miller. “I couldn’t have asked any more from the guys. When we drove here, it was 100 degrees (F)… How do we prepare for this? We train like buggers all week long. Let’s face it. it’s not going to be cool when we go on the road in August, though I don’t think we’d have anything as warm as this. And I said in the pre-game talk, if anyone doesn’t like these conditions, they can take their shirt off and go sit in the stands. But they all responded. It was a great performance.”

Really, Denissen’s match winner came out of nothing, just minutes after Daryl Fordyce hammered the Eddies’ best chance of the second half wide of the goal.

Fordyce, though, deserved to take a bow for his eighth-minute equalizer, a rocket of a shot from the right side that went across the face of goal and off the left post and in. It allowed the Eddies to get off the deck after Denissen’s early goal.

“It was a fantastic goal, really showed our character to score right after we’d given away such a terrible goal,” said Miller.

Smits would love to have that first goal back. Scorpion Javier Saavedra played a long ball ahead into the penalty area for Denissen. Eddies’ fullback Edson Edward tried to track the striker’s run, but Denissen cut across of him. Denissen flicked his boot at the ball and it looped over Smits, who desperately tried to get a hand to the ball. But the ball found the back of the net. Smits got caught in no man’s land — he either has to be on top of that initial ball in and come to collect it or he has to stay at home. But he ended up being in the middle of the box, allowing Denissen the option to chip the keeper.

Smits was backed up by FCE Academy prospect Norbert Janas; with regular starter Lance Parker out with a shoulder problem, the Eddies signed Janas to an amateur contract so he’d be available for the game.

Midfielder Shaun Saiko did not travel due to illness, which put Antonio Rago into the starting lineup as a midfielder.

The Eddies have already been eliminated from having any chance of finishing atop the NASL spring season standings.