Off the field, there was some good news as well. FCE’s Allan Zebie, who looks to have claimed a starting fullback spot after making the jump from the academy to the first team this past off-season, was signed to a contract extension that keeps him with the Eddies till 2017. Zebie is also rocketing up the Canadian minutes-played charts.

FC Edmonton's brass decided to rotate the squad for Sunday's match against the San Antonio Scorpions. And, with so many younger prospects given the chance to play, a whopping total of 421 minutes were given to Canadian players.

Late in the game, after intercepting a pass, Eddies’ central defender Mallan Roberts lingered on the ball rather than making the simple play and hoofing the ball out of danger. San Antonio’s Billy Forbes, who scored earlier in the game, nicked the ball off of Roberts’s feet and then went in alone on goal. He finished neatly, giving the Scorpions the late winner.

“What a performance by these guys tonight,” said FC Edmonton coach Colin Miller. “It speaks to the culture that we’re trying to build here. We gave up some very poor goals to the best team in NASL on Sunday. But we came into this game not looking to draw; we thought we could win the game. We knew that, playing against the best team in the MLS Western Conference, that we couldn’t have one single player out there fail tonight. And we didn’t have any failures.”

Hanson Boakai, Adrian Cann and Mason Trafford made their NASL season debuts this past weekend, and it pushes the number of "surefire" Canadian prospects who have played in MLS or NASL in 2015 to 29. But, let's break that number down. Take Ottawa and the Eddies out of the equation, and the number of players drops to 16 — which isn't very good at all.

Two Canadians made their season debuts this weekend; After playing in USL or being parked on the bench through the first eight weeks of the MLS season, New York Red Bulls defender Karl Ouimette got to play a full 90 minutes on Saturday. And, on Sunday, fullback Allan Zebie, a product of the FC Edmonton Academy, made his NASL debut, coming in as a sub in Sunday's 2-2 draw between the Eddies and Minnesota United.

Then, it all changed on what looked to be an innocuous play. Minnesota fullback Justin Davis got into the penalty are with the ball, and looked to have run himself into a corner; he wasn’t facing goal and he didn’t have a shooting angle. At best, he could hope to turn and pop a cross to the centre of the area. But FC Edmonton substitute Michael Nonni elected to dive in. Even though Nonni got all ball with the tackle, Davis went down and referee Geoff Gamble pointed to the spot.

Up 3-1 after the first leg of their Amway Canadian Championship preliminary round tie against the Ottawa Fury, FC Edmonton’s players had a bit of a surprise prepared. Instead of bunkering and trying to protect the three road goals they scored in the first leg, they came out onto the Clarke Stadium turf looking to break the backs of their …

FC Edmonton had a bye this week in NASL play, but its hold at the top of the minutes-played-by Canadians list among the top two divisions in North American soccer only got a little stronger.

FC Edmonton not only got a thrilling win in the most compelling game played in either MLS or NASL this weekend, but the Eddies are putting some distance between themselves and the rest of the pack when it comes to playing Canadians.