In a game that had very few decent chances, FCE had a wonderful chance to steal the game at the death. Striker Frank Jonke got the ball in the middle of the box after Horace James was able to slide and make a pass after recovering his own blocked shot. But Ottawa keeper Devala Gorrick was able to make a sliding stop.

“I was just trying to connect with it,” Heinemann said following the game. “It was obviously just an empty net so I was just trying to connect with it and put it on frame.”

Of the four times the Whitecaps have beaten in FC Edmonton in Amway Canadian Championship action over the past two years, Wednesday’s win was the most comprehensive.

The Vancouver Whitecaps are happy with where they stand going into Wednesday’s second leg of the Canadian Championship semifinal against FC Edmonton, but know they must maintain readiness from the first whistle.

“It always feels good to score, especially with my first professional goal,” Manneh told reporters after the match. “It was a tough situation. We were down two goals and we needed a goal.”

FC Edmonton Colin Miller wasn’t around to see the Vancouver Whitecaps score the game winner.

“Two deflections that we’ve lost goals from,” head coach Martin Rennie said of Dallas’s goals. “So that’s very frustrating."

“I thought it was a possession clinic for the Whitecaps in the first half,” Miller told reporters following the match. “We created a few chances for a five-minute spell. It was our first outdoor 90 minutes in all honesty, so we weren’t expecting miracles, but with well-chosen words at half time, you could see a response from the guys.”

The Whitecaps announced the signings of three men Wednesday who fall very much into the “project player” category: Paulo Jr., Tom Heinemann and Corey Hertzog.