“If we wouldn’t have slipped up in Miami two weeks ago, we’d be having a party right now,” said Keegan, who opened the scoring with his foot and scored the second with the back of his head.

“Any time you’re not scoring, at least over a goal per game, it’s frustrating,” said Keegan. “For the most part, apart from the first three games, we’ve been scoring just enough to win games. Obviously in Miami (the loss that eliminated the Eddies from the spring-season title race) we didn’t get it done.”

“If another team comes in for Mallan, we’re in control of that situation. What Ottawa has done is taken on his salary and hopefully he can get some playing time there.”

FC Edmonton began Saturday evening’s action in a dogfight for the NASL spring season title. But a fantastic 25-yard strike from Miami FC’s Ariel Martinez ended those dreams.

“There’s a job to be done,” Miller said before the Eddies head off to South Florida. “They just signed a boy, (Michael) Lahoud, who I think was the one who made the Cosmos tick for many games, and now Miami have him. With him and Richie Ryan in the middle of the park, you can see their intent in Miami is not to be in the league where they are at the moment.”

Since 2012, when FC Edmonton moved into Clarke Field, the RailHawks have not won there, and have been outscored 22-6.

For the Eddies, the Timbo tackle will become just another chapter in a novel entitled Agonizing Ways to Be Eliminated From the Voyageurs Cup. At least the Eddies didn’t get knocked out by a 97th-minute goals in the second leg of a tie, as they have in the past two years. But, scoring two first-half goals in Ottawa is yet another way this team has brought its fans so close to Cup joy — only to have it go bad in the end.

At halftime, with FC Edmonton trailing 1-0, coach Colin Miller was so angry about his team’s performance, he said that “we’ll end up being relegated, and there is no relegation.”

According to the NASL's match stats, FC Edmonton got just one shot on target in Saturday's match at the Indy Eleven.

From next Wednesday (May 4) to May 22, the Eddies will play six games. That works out to an average of a game every three days for the better part of a month. Beginning with next Wednesday’s date in Jacksonville, the Eddies will play four NASL matches and two Amway Canadian Championship matches in the span of a little less than three weeks.