So, in terms of owners opening the door on free agency, it’s barely open a crack. The lock is off, though — and it will be up to the players to kick it down when this CBA expires five years from now.

The Atlanta Silverbacks announced Wednesday that they have signed the Canadian international. Porter will be reunited with fellow Canadian former FC Edmonton teammate Dominic Oppong, who signed with the Silverbacks last month.

So, on a Tuesday night packed with action for the Canadian soccer supporter — what was the most important moment? Was it a last-gasp goal from Cameron Porter, or a second-half marker from Kosovar Sadiki?

But the Eddies’ play over those 180 minutes made a lasting impression on the Gambian player, who has since moved on to the San Jose Earthquakes. So, when his twin brother, Sainey, was looking for a club, Sanna gave the Eddies a glowing review.

Granitto comes from a sporting family. He was born in El Salvador to Argentine parents. His father, Gustavo, ran a tennis academy and had been assigned by the International Tennis Federation to Central America to help develop the game there. Granitto lived in El Salvador till he was five, then his family moved to the United States. Granitto would excel at soccer and would play his way onto the roster at Florida Gulf Coast University, and helped that team to its first-ever NCAA tournament appearance.

“He has a terrific attitude,” says Miller. “And he runs faster than I can drive my car. We are going to give him an opportunity; he also had English Premier League experience.”

And it’s at the USL level where the issue of free agency — the divide that separates the union and MLS brass — might be most important. If players can be “parked” in the lower division for the lives of their contracts, including team options, then it’s hard to call USL anything else but a farm system. But, if players who are with MLS teams but don’t get the chance at first-team MLS football are offered the chance to move on, then we can argue that truly, USL is a system that puts the development of the player, first.

There is something I want to address, though. Something I’ve thought hard about in the process of doing these interviews. We’re in that part of the NASL and MLS silly season (and right near the closing of the transfer window). So, the message boards and Twitter are filled with jokes about the number of Canadian players on Unattached FC. Many fans wonder “why doesn’t player A try to join NASL Team X or MLS Team Y? Why doesn’t he take a chance to play halfway across the world?”

But is Sunday a day that we, as in Canadians, actually want to watch sports? Or is it a day that we'd like to get away from the sporting universe? Even the most ardent fan reaches a critical mass, where he or she says "enough" and needs to do something else than follow scores and trades and watch game after game. You need to spend time with the kids, go to the lake, just get outside, talk to real people.

MLS and NASL teams aren’t forthcoming about the terms of their contracts. But the MLS Players Union sheds some light on how the salaries are paid out. According to MLSPU Executive Director Bob Foose: “All contracts are calculated in U.S. Dollars, players can then choose to have them paid in either, or a combination.”