“A Portuguese player once said, the goals come like ketchup. Once you get one, all the rest come after it,” said Eustaquio. This is especially poignant considering that Eustaquio grew up in Leamington, Ont., which is the tomato and ketchup capital of Canada. Damn, do I love it when the player provides the poetry for me. Makes this “game story” thing so much easier.

Titan may have been the Eddies’ Man of the Match Sunday. The replay screen was front and centre in what was a controversial finish to FC Edmonton’s final regular-season home game of 2016, a 1-0 win over the Jacksonville Armada.

How negative was the road side? Even when PRFC was up a man, the players opted for a clock-killing strategy. Late in the game, up a player, the visitors chose to take the ball into the corner and kill time rather than try to create scoring chances.

The game was a fast-paced toe-to-toe battle between the Cosmos and the Eddies, but kickoff was delayed because of a… wait for it… sock controversy. Referee Yusri Rudolf was not happy when both the Cosmos and Eddies lined up in white socks.

On Sunday, both FC Edmonton coach Colin Miller and Minnesota United boss Manny Lagos will rue how the players in their teams’ respective walls got out of the way when free kicks were hammered in their direction.

But, while the Eddies started off the game shorthanded, it was the San Antonio Scorpions who finished with just nine men on the field. And they faced a sombre 4,000-km-plus trip home to Texas from oil-sands territory after receiving a 4-0 hiding from the Eddies to open the NASL fall season.