Canada’s ability to naturalize soccer prospects thanks to our professional teams may do our national soccer program a lot of good down the road.

Hometown products Shaun Saiko, who led the team in scoring last season, and fullback Antonio Rago were officially placed on the list, but Alberta-born centre back and NASL Best XI member Paul Hamilton was not part of the 16.

According to a release on the Belfast club Linfield FC's website released this weekend: "Former Linfield players Albert Watson and Daryl Fordyce have today signed for FC Edmonton in Canada following a two-week trial."

Andy Ramos didn’t defect. He didn’t slip away before a national-team game. He didn’t ask for asylum.

“Minnesota wasn’t interested in me and they were going in a different direction,” said Nunez. “Edmonton seemed to really like me a lot. I was kind of shocked at what happened in Minnesota. I thought I was a big part of their plans. I guess I was mistaken.”

“It has been fantastic so far,” said midfielder and 2011 NASL Best XI member Shaun Saiko. “From my time at Middlesbrough, this was the kind of preseason training that we did. We’ve started the preseason off brightly, there have been no lulls. You have got to get after it.”

Porter only played seven minutes in DCU’s final game of the Walt Disney World Pro Soccer Classic, a 2-0 win over Philadelphia. That’s a sign that he’s indeed a part of the club, as coach Ben Olsen has already made up his mind about the Mississauga native and used the game as a chance to see other prospects.

“We want to drip-feed these young men into our first-team environment and, hopefully, get them into our first team as quickly as possible,” Miller said. “In the first team, there will be massive changes, but there always will be a continuing influx of Canadians into the first-team group.”

Both Canadian teams were upstaged by a Canadian trialist in the final day of group-stage play at the Walt Disney World Pro Soccer Classic.

It sounds like the beginning of a bad pub joke: Two Irish guys walk up to a police constable, and the officer tells them to get in the back of the van.