Despite the big crowd and an FC Edmonton attack that has been changed over from last season, there were some storylines that FCE supporters would find all too familiar. The Eddies, who boasted the worst offence and best defence in NASL last season, took until the 68th minute to actually place a shot on frame, an effort from striker Frank Jonke that was blocked by Cosmos keeper Jimmy Maurer.

Now, whether you love or hate the NASL’s decision to create a spring season in which each of the 10 teams plays a nine-game schedule — with one of the top two playoff, er, “Championship” seeds going to the league champ — there’s no doubt it brought a sense of immediacy to the opening weekend.

The survey, which was sent out to FC Edmonton and Minnesota United supporters on Wednesday, asks if fans like the current Soccer Bowl format or would like to see the competition widened.

Watson, who was one of two Eddies on the MVP ballot (the now-departed Chris Nurse was the other) got enough votes from the league’s eight head coaches, who select the season-ending all-star team.

“I want to apologize for the performance today,” said Fordyce, who scored the Eddies’ lone goal, a 93rd-minute consolation, in a 2-1 loss to Minnesota United FC.

Now, 1-1 is one of the most common scorelines of all in soccer (more on that later). But, still, to see it repeated five times, against five different opponents, is a longshot of longshots. Some of the opponents would be better, some would be worse. Some would have a higher-than-average goals-per-game standard, some would be below the league average. The opponents would be variables, not constants. Yet, to see a team play them all to 1-1 draws over the course of five consecutive weeks, home games and road games, is mind boggling.

The North American Soccer League has a mini-crisis on its hands at the moment. And, in the coming days, how the NASL handles the fallout from Sunday’s Fort Lauderdale Strikers/FC Edmonton match can either go a long way to building the credibility of the league or entrenching the image of North American soccer outside of MLS as rudderless.

The 11 understands that there was debate about starting the season earlier in year, which would have allowed for a balanced spring-fall schedule. But, that would have been unfair to northern members in Minnesota, Edmonton and Ottawa. A schedule which would start in early March would have meant the Fury and FC Edmonton could have been playing game at home in heavy snow, or been forced to start the campaigns with ridiculously long road trips.

“Mallan Roberts had two or three chances from inside the box, open headers and a couple were put into the keeper’s chest,” said Miller. “Antonio Rago hit the post. I think they had two shots on goal for the entire game. I thought, overall, we did very well.

“That’s the issue, we get into the 18-yard box and we can’t even hit the target,” said FCE coach Colin Miller. “It’s so frustrating, we showed so much quality, so much passing, but we can’t finish the chances."