A trade offer was made by the Carolina RailHawks during the 2015 season, but a deal couldn’t be finalized. But, after his Ottawa contract expired at the end of the campaign, Beckie finally made the move to North Carolina. The team announced Beckie’s arrival on Thursday.

If Ottawa wins on Sunday, Dos Santos would be the second Canadian coach to win the NASL title.

But, it’s got to pain people in Ottawa — and at NASL offices — that the final won’t be held in Ottawa. The semifinal at TD Place set a league record for post-season attendance, with 9,346 fans coming out. Had Ottawa hosted the final, the 10,000-tickets-sold mark would easily have been eclipsed.

What we saw was a Fury team that was reinvented. A phoenix had risen from the ashes of a heavy Cup defeat. The Fury went from a team that was routinely getting picked apart to the staunchest defensive side in NASL. And, ironically, that was most clear in the league games against the Eddies. The Eddies scored six times in two Cup games against the Fury; in three subsequent league games against Ottawa, no Edmonton shot entered the Fury’s goal.

Two Canadian teams in the top sector of the league standings. Facing each other, with so much on the line. Pinch us.

The new issue, out today, features a vintage shot from the World Cup qualifier which saw Canada qualify for the 1986 World Cup. And what can you find inside the issue?

What a swan song for Marc Dos Santos, who has announced he will leave the Ottawa Fury at the end of the NASL season in order to secure a USL/MLS job in 2016. As we enter the stretch run of the NASL’s fall season, his team sits at the top of the league table. After a disappointing spring campaign and early elimination from the Amway Canadian Championship, MDS and his team have rebounded. In this Q and A, Dos Santos talks about NASL, the future of the Fury and his skepticism over a rumoured all-Canadian pro league...

Remember that this isn’t the first time that an NASL coach announced he would be leaving his club at the end of a season in order to take an MLS job. Back in 2011, the Carolina RailHawks were absolutely savaging the rest of the NASL, and head coach Martin Rennie was rumoured to be going to a number of MLS teams.

We are working to prepare the autumn issue of Plastic Pitch. And, as has become custom, we prep for the launch of the issue by previewing one of our stories on The 11. We present an abridged version of the Q and A we did with Ottawa Fury coach Marc Dos Santos.

But what was striking about Sunday’s game is how much Fury coach Marc Dos Santos learned from this past spring’s Amway Canadian Championship loss to the Eddies, then used that knowledge to craft a game plan that neutralized one of the top offences in the league.