Silberbauer said the existing relationship with Simpson was a big factor in him taking the job. “It’s important, for sure, that this came from someone you can trust, who you don’t have to background check at all. I know what he’s about, and when he talks, I listen.”

Pacific FC is officially the seventh team to join the Canadian Premier League ahead of the nascent circuit's inaugural season set to kick off in 2019.

The team will play out of Westhills Stadium in Langford. Improvements still need to be made to the facility and a lease deal needs to be put in place.

Simpson has yet to rejoin the first team — even for training — since he suffered a badly broken leg in the final game of the 2011-12 season.

Occean, who opened his Bundesliga account with a goal last week, hobbled out of Frankfurt’s 2-1 win over FC Nurnberg just 20 minutes into the match.

Stephen Hart offered no surprises in naming the Canadian men's naional-team roster for Sept. 7 and 11 World Cup qualifiers against Panama.

“Not only missed chances,” said Hart of Tuesday’s 0-0 home draw with Honduras, “But we failed to make the keeper work."

“I think the time for experimenting is finished,” said Hart. “We had a series of games in the first round of qualifying and due to injury or unforeseen circumstances I had a lot of different players go through that system. But now we sort of know what we need to do and any sort of changes is not necessary now.”

“The game against the States is not the most important,” said the 29-year-old Brampton native and PSV Eindhoven midfielder in a conference call with reporters on Monday from the Canadian team’s training camp in Sunrise, Fla. “We want to be ready for the qualifying games.”

BSC Young Boys released a statement on Thursday on the status of Canadian national-team midfielder Josh Simpson, who broke his tibia, fibula and ankle in Wednesday’s Swiss League finale.