But, despite the clouds in the sky, coach Colin Miller’s outlook was positively sunny.

FC Edmonton coach Colin Miller has been involved in professional soccer for more than three decades. He said Tuesday that, at no time in his career, has he been involved in an injury crisis as severe as the one FC Edmonton is in right now.

“I don’t want to be the player who was only called into one game,” he said. “The experience, it was huge. I gained a lot of experience from it. There are so many players there who have careers in Europe, from around MLS and other teams in North America. I can see that’s where I want my career to go.”

“Escape” is the appropriate word, because FCE keeper John Smits, making his second start in a row, made two outstanding point-blank second-half saves, to give the Eddies their first clean sheet of the season — in Cup or NASL play.

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 …

“We know what we have to do — we have to go for it. We need three goals. It doesn’t matter if Edmonton scores a goal or they don’t score a goal, we need three. We can give up one, because it doesn’t change our job. Of course, if we give up a second, that’s a problem, because we’d need to score four. And I don’t think anyone has ever come here (Clarke Stadium) and scored four goals. But, for Edmonton, they don’t know how to handle it. They will be asking themselves: Do we defend? Do we play to win? Do we try and stay halfway?”

Icelandic club KR Reykjavik and midfielder Oskar Hauksson cut their losses Friday; the one-year loan deal that had sent the winger to FC Edmonton was terminated before the NASL season was a month old. The Eddies say they came to an "amicable" agreement with both the player and Reykjavik.

Sunday’s battle between the Fort Lauderdale Strikers and FC Edmonton was one of these how-do-I-squeeze it all in matches. The Eddies fought back from a 2-1 second-half deficit and hung on for a 3-2 win. This game had so much to offer; two teams playing contrasting, attacking styles; lights-out goalkeeping from the Strikers’ David Meves, who deserves to be on the NASL team of the week despite giving up three; a penalty save; an assistant coach tossed from the game (Fort Lauderdale’s Ricardo Lopes felt that referee Robert Schaap should have given FCE striker Frank Jonke a harsh punishment for a challenge that bloodied the nose of defender Daniel Navarro); and what turned out to be a series of brilliant substitution decisions from FCE coach Colin Miller which changed the game.

“It was as poor a half as I’ve seen since I’ve been here,” FCE Coach Colin Miller said of the Eddies’ first 45 minutes against the RailHawks.

A month before the start of FC Edmonton’s training camp, Frank Jonke was awoken by a terrible pain in his gut. The Canadian striker was in agony. Not only was the pain severe, he couldn’t keep food down. By the time the NASL team’s camp opened, he was down 15 pounds.