The eyes of Canadian soccer fans need to be trained on Edmonton’s City Council Chambers on Oct. 31.

And in Alberta, the richest, most prosperous province in Canada by a country mile, a place where people who drive buses make more than execs in Toronto, we have a debate about whether or not to stick temporary trailers on a track in order to get our World Cup bid to a passing-grade level. And it shows just how much PR work the CSA has to do in Canada’s centre of wealth.

It was October, 1996 — and the CONCACAF World Cup qualifying schedule had Canada playing Cuba back-to-back. One home game on Oct. 10, then an away match Oct. 13. The home date took place at Edmonton’s Commonwealth Stadium — which had been lovingly nicknamed “St. Paul’s Cathedral” by Canadian supporters because of Paul Peschisolido’s knack of scoring goals there.

The number was painful to read, painful to report. In a concrete monolith of a stadium that’s built to seat more than 60,000, just 2,777 people came to see FC Edmonton play the Vancouver Whitecaps in their first leg of the Amway Canadian Championship semifinal.

Book it. The semifinals of the Voyageurs’ Cup will see the Vancouver Whitecaps face FC Edmonton and Toronto FC play the Montreal Impact. The match-ups were confirmed by MLSSoccer.com on Monday, quoting Canadian Soccer Association officials.

A FIFA delegation that inspected Edmonton’s Commonwealth Stadium said Monday that it is delighted with the progress the city has made as it prepares to be one of the host cities of the 2015 Women’s World Cup. “It’s absolutely acceptable to us,” said Tatjana Haenni, FIFA’s head of women’s competitions, in a press conference held Monday in the Alberta capital.

Edmonton Mayor Stephen Mandel will meet with Canadian Soccer Association and FIFA officials this weekend as the Alberta capital pushes hard to be the jewel in the crown of the 2015 Women’s World Cup.

Now, the next part of the debate: Which cities will get the plum games — Canada’s home games, semifinals and final? FIFA and the Canadian Soccer Association released the names of the seven “candidate” cities to host games. Toronto wasn’t on that list, as expected, because of the conflict between the WWC and the Pan Am Games. The seven cities: Halifax, Moncton, Montreal Ottawa, Winnipeg, Edmonton and Vancouver.

The North American Soccer League did its best impression of an organization NOT in crisis Tuesday, as it released its full 2011 schedule, and announced that six of the circuit’s eight teams will make the playoffs

Can a Nutrilite Canadian Championship game generate enough interest to sell 50,000 tickets? That question will be answered in May, when FC Edmonton hosts Toronto FC at Commonwealth Stadium.