On Friday, a week after JDG’s WEM declaration, it’s official. The Canadian midfielder will play for the Fury in 2015.

Four Canadian players made their MLS season debuts (or MLS debuts, period) in the third weekend of the MLS season. That boosts the number of Canadians who have played in the league so far in 2015 to 12.

Canadian national-teamers Desiree Scott, Emily Zurrer and Julian de Guzman posed in the team's new kits Friday. The new Umbro kits were unveiled at the flagship SportChek store at West Edmonton Mall.

Julian de Guzman has played in Germany and Spain; he’s been a Designated Player in Major League Soccer. Is his next stop the North American Soccer League? The veteran Canadian national-team midfielder, at the West Edmonton Mall Friday for the launch of the new red Canada kit, said he hopes to have a new team at the end of March. …

All you do is this: If you would spend $500 a ticket (yes, I know some tickets would be less, some would be more, but this is a good median figure), then go down and click off a box that corresponds to your region. Please don’t vote more than once. I have this poll policed, but technology is never 100 per cent efficient.

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.

Issue 5 of Plastic Pitch, out now, represents our most pain-staking effort. This issue is a labour of love, of passion for the Canadian game — and asks questions about our Canadian identity within the game. It should easily become the most talked-about issue we’ve put out.

Bryce Alderson  was a Generation Adidas player as a teenager. But the Canadian never played a minute for the Whitecaps in Major League Soccer. Still, the Whitecaps wanted him back in 2015 — and envisoned Alderson being a big part of their new USL-PRO team. But, after years of waiting for a shot on the big stage, Alderson said no...

When the NWSL was founded, the Canadian Soccer Association was in on the ground floor; the CSA agreed to subsidize the contracts of 16 Canadian players, who would all be assigned to various teams in the new women’s league. But, that relationship isn’t quite as rosy as it was a couple of years ago — and Canada is no longer using its full allocation...

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...