First, congratulations to Real Monarchs’ forward Mastanabal Kacher, who netted a brace in a midweek game against Sounders 2.

And the glaring, obvious truth is that Canada, despite only having one team in CCL, year after year performs better than the United States, which has four slots in the tournament.

Canadians played key roles in the NASL reunion match between North Carolina FC and the Indy Eleven this past weekend.

Michael Cox enjoyed a historic weekend. He drew the penalty and converted the ensuing spot-kick to give Nashville SC a 1-0 win over Bethlehem Steel. It marked the first win in the history of the USL’s expansion club in Music City, USA. Cox’s exploits highlighted a weekend which saw the number of Canadians who have appeared in at least one …

By our count, there are 39 Canadians who have got onto the pitches for USL matches.

Of course, as Beirne will be shaking hands, meeting and greeting, over the next two days, a lot of topics will be covered. We talked about a few Wednesday night.

Highlighting this week’s USL action was a goal from Keven Aleman, the former Canadian youth star who’s become somewhat of a forgotten man in the current national team set-up.

Raheem Edwards went from triumph to tragedy in a very busy 24-minute stint, Saturday.

The two teams met for the First Kick opener at BC Place this past weekend, and what a change. The teams combined to put a total of seven Canadians on the field. There was a goal and an assist from teenager Alphonso Davies.

As CanPL moves toward its 2019 launch as this country’s division one, despite the presence of three Canadian sides in MLS, it will be interesting to see what the league takes away from MLS — and what it stays away from.