issue 011 2013 edition

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Edmonton Alberta (Jan 25, 2013) - In search of a nice piece of silverware and a foothold in the busy Edmonton sports market - the club has named Edmontonian Rod Proudfoot as its general manager.

Proudfoot, a 30-year-veteran of the sports and entertainment industry will take charge of FC Edmonton ef-fective January 25, 2o13 - taking over from outgoing general manager Tom Leip - and will work towards helping the club achieve sustainability within the City of Champions.

“We had the chance to work with him while he worked with the city and we’re all excited to work with him at the club level,” says FC Edmonton owner Tom Fath at the press confer-ence on Friday.

“Can’t beat the Edmonton sports market and I’m looking forward to being a part of it again,” Proudfoot says at the press conference. “I was part of the sports pride and swagger in Edmonton in the 1980s – I want to recreate this with FC Edmonton and I am excited to be a part of it.”

Most recently, Proudfoot held a contract with the City of Edmonton as a Special Projects Officer, but the former Calgary Stampeder market-ing director has plenty of experience with markets across the province and North America.

Proudfoot will focus primarily on the business end of the soccer club while Technical Director Joe Petrone continues to look after the team side.

FC Edmonton Announce the Club’s New General ManagerRod Proudfoot brings new direction to FC Edmonton

On February 4, FC Edmonton made a presentation to Executive Commit-tee at the City of Edmonton on the concept of building a new mid-sized stadium (8,000-10,000) to better support soccer and other events in the City. Tom Fath noted that other soccer organizations around North America have built mid-sized soccer stadiums of this size for between $12-40 million.

The City subsequently directed FC Edmonton to work with the City’s Community and Recreation Services Branch to develop business model options and a Needs Assessment ad-dressing the evolution of soccer and

field sports in Edmonton. A report is expected back to City Council later in 2013.

FC Edmonton owner Tom Fath is expanding Clark Field seating from 1,300 to over 4,000 by mid-April, 2013. The City wants to see what the public response will be at Eddies home games this season before delib-erating on the new stadium.

2013 will be a game changer for the Eddies as the Club undertakes a num-ber of key initiatives to improve the team, the operations, the game ex-perience and the fan base. “Anybody who is a soccer fan should come to the games this year, fill the stadium and

show that the existing facility isn’t enough” says Fath. Already, minor soccer zones and clubs in and around Edmonton have been working with FC Edmonton to help fill the stands as well as raise funds for their respective programs.

The real winner from a new sta-dium will be the soccer and sports community-at-large. A new stadium will add much needed capacity, draw national and international competi-tive matches to the City, and provide a great environment for younger soccer players who hope to grow into elite players. And of course, a new stadium will greatly enhance fans’ game and

viewing experience.Filling the stands at Clark Field

this summer would be a good start to galvanizing the City into realizing the vision of Edmonton hosting the best mid-sized soccer stadium between Vancouver and Toronto.

Founders Club FC Edmonton has instituted a

special program this year aimed at re-newing the club’s season ticket buyers and sponsoring corporations.

The new FC Edmonton Founders Club Membership rewards individu-als and sponsors who commit to three seasons of support. Founders Club

members will receive a dedicated 4”x8” brick in the new stadium, cur-rently proposed for Edmonton, as well as a secured place on FC Edmon-ton’s online Club wall.

This is a great way to support the Eddies as well as get in on the ground floor for seat placement and selection of the proposed new mid-size stadium when it receives approval to proceed. Go online at www.shopfcedmonton.com or call 780-439-7529 to get your season tickets now

NEW STADIUM TALKS WITH THE CITYPlease note that this artist’s rendering is simply conceptual,

used for budgetary purposes and not the actual proposed stadium.

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By: Daniel Squizzato

With FC Edmonton about to enter its third NASL season, the team appears to be facing what Steven Sandor has astutely called a “make-or-break” year.

The Eddies have, in their short existence, played in three different facilities (all unsatisfactory in their own ways), and the push is now on for a soccer-specific stadium that would help fully entrench the team in the civic consciousness.

First, though, it must be shown that the demand is there -- so the team, as well as the FC Edmonton Support-ers Group -- have begun their own push: To sell out as many games as possible at the team’s current home, the recently-expanded-to-5,000-seat Clarke Stadium.

For a team with an average atten-dance of 1,525 in 2012, that seems like a mighty big ask. So, can they do it? Does the demand exist in Ed-monton? And what needs to be done to transform the team from a novelty into a fully accepted part of the local landscape? For some insight, I spoke to Greg Baker and Tobi Oliva of the FCESG about those questions and more.

The push is on from the team and the supporters to sell out as many games as possible this year, to send a message to the city that a stadium is worth building. But what do you think the chances are of seeing most of FC Edmonton’s home games sold out in 2013?GB: I think we’re cautiously optimis-tic, that’s my take on it. The biggest

reason that we had such small crowds last year was this whole fiasco with the seating. ... We moved from Foote Field at the University of Alberta to Clarke Stadium. They did the unveil-ing, showed us all the temporary seat-ing that would be installed to expand it and all this, and everybody was quite excited about it. And then it was one story after another about why it wasn’t up yet. They didn’t want to get a liquor license for the games until the stands were in, because they’d have to reapply or something like that.

So it was one thing after another that dragged on and on. The offshoot of that was that they basically did zero marketing of the actual games, because when you’ve only got 1,200 seats and most of that is standing room, you really don’t want to have to start a big marketing blitz and then turn people away. It sounds kind of funny, because people talk about building a demand, but I think that’s a bit of an artificial demand. You’re not going to get those people clamouring to get in like you would have in the early days of TFC.

TO: Basically in my conversations with the club over the last 12 months, seeing what happened, their market-ing budget was also cut back, I think, because of that reason. They didn’t really have the leeway to try and mar-ket, especially if people were going to show up and be turned away.

You mention last year’s two big issues, in terms of the stadium and the marketing. Do you feel those issues have been ad-equately addressed going into 2013?GB: We’ll see. They said they are. I

think the real test is whether those stands get up as soon as they can clear the snow off. That’s the first thing that people are going to be looking to, in order to see whether this is real.

What (the stadium issue last year) basically came down to is, they bought some fancy stands from the States and didn’t think they would have issues getting permits putting them up in Alberta. ... They couldn’t get architects to sign off on it, who would let them put it up. It wasn’t so simple as getting the city to sign off on something, they had to start almost from scratch in terms of a full archi-tectural assessment -- which, in some people’s minds, was a real faux pas, in terms of making those assumptions.

Tom Fath, being the owner of the club and having made his money in the construction business, people thought these guys should be more on the ball, in terms of knowing that just because something is approved elsewhere, it might not meet specific provincial building codes. So they had to start that whole process before they could even apply for a permit.

People may say it’s overly am-bitious to think you can fill a 5,000-seat stadium for this season, given last year’s atten-dance. But from the way you’re describing it, it’s more about the logistical issues in the past, rather than some inherent lack of interest or lack of demand. So if these issues are dealt with, as you hope, do you think there is that organic demand within the city of Edmonton?TO: I would say yes...GB: I think so too.

TO: ... if you consider the fact that they really only could fit 1,500, 1,300, depending on who you ask, per game. That was basically full standing room. So I guess their hands are tied in that respect. Now that the playing field is set for that, the circumstances are a lot more encouraging now than it was a year ago.

GB: I’ve been following the team since day one -- in fact, I went to the very first press conference that Tom Fath had to announce the existence of the team, which is almost exactly three years ago now. Since that time we’ve watched them play at Foote Field, which was the U of A campus, which was terrible: small field, and for Canadian university football, with bright yellow and green end zones and white lines all over the place. It was a multi-purpose field. I said it was the place old fake Christmas trees went to die, they just stapled them down.

The other thing is that the general admission seating, which is where a lot of the fans were congregating, was up a hill and away, so it didn’t feel very intimate. We had a pretty good season, the first real season (2011); we had fun in the exhibition season before that. But last year, we were ter-rible, we lost almost every game, but I think by and large people had a much better time at Clarke. I know the supporters certainly did. But I think generally the feeling is that this was a lot better.

So I anticipate that if they actu-ally start marketing the thing -- (now) they’ve got control over their own destiny, which they didn’t have when they shared (a facility) with the U of A, in terms of scheduling; I think every home game is a Sunday after-

noon now, (which isn’t) perfect, but it’s probably the best option for most people -- I don’t see any reason why they can’t get 5,000 people out.

At the end of the day, the onus for marketing a team falls upon the team itself. But sometimes -- as you mentioned earlier, with the early days of TFC -- the support-ers themselves and the culture can be as much of a marketing tool as anything. So I’m wonder-ing, what sorts of things has the FCESG been doing to try to help the team reach that attendance goal?

TO: First off, we’re about to launch our website; it will provide the fan perspective of things in Edmonton. We’re trying our best on Twitter (@FCESG); we came up with the #FCEd5k hashtag. Just little things like that, trying to get more people involved, trying to reach out to more people. We’re offering a beer to people who stand with us for the first time at a game.

We’re trying to get into bigger things too, being more visible -- for example, we filmed a commercial with FC Edmonton where we’re basi-cally chanting in mundane situations throughout the winter, things you wouldn’t normally chant for, like parking a car or waiting for a printout to come out. That’s coming up pretty soon, with the season tickets about to be sold on the 4th. We’re expecting a commercial to be done there.

We also have a rivalry with Minne-sota. I think both clubs are approach-ing both sets of supporters to talk about the Flyover Cup, which is the cup that we play for every year with

A Turning Point FOR FC Edmonton and its Supporters

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A3Minnesota.

GB: Both Edmonton and Min-nesota are places you’d fly over while going somewhere else.TO: We’re trying to be more visible, obviously. If you consider two years ago, we really only have five to 10 people show up to games, sometimes we only had three people show up to games...GB: Supporters, not total.TO: I would say last year we got it up to a good dozen, sometimes 20.GB: Twenty, 24, maybe.TO: Yeah. Especially that last game -- if you look at the last game, we were probably the most vocal we’ve ever been. So it was encouraging, to get more people to join us. And also, I think, trying to break down the per-ception of soccer in this city, always trying to bring it to the conversation, in little ways and big ways. Social me-dia is part of that; at the same time, I walk around the city with this FC Edmonton scarf almost every day. It’s like part of my body now. I get people talking, and it’s really interesting, the kind of conversations you get.

For the most part, it’s “oh, yeah, I’m really interested, I hear we have a pro soccer team in the city” -- and it’s like, “well, OK, when are you going to show up and bring your kids around?” I say the same thing almost every time I get into this conversation: “Come out for a beer. I’ll buy you one beer.” Just see pro soccer for what it’s worth, for what it is, in Edmonton, and what it means to people here.

GB: One thing I wanted to men-tion, as Tobi mentioned, we use social media quite a bit. ... We do stuff, especially when games are on, we live-tweet during games, we try to get people out. One thing that I noticed worked quite well was us-ing it to make connections with the small pockets of fans who basically are cold and afraid and alone, and let them know there are other people out here who are interested in this team and are supporting it. And I think we have some really good success stories about bringing people into the sup-porters group through that.

We follow anybody who says any-thing about FC Edmonton on Twitter, we retweet them, we try and engage them in some kind of conversation and then slowly invite them to come to the forum to discuss it, those kinds of things. So I think we have done a pretty concentrated and strategic social media plan, from our side, as supporters.

In Part 2, Greg and Tobi tell us about the challenges of building a supporters culture in Edmon-ton, how deeply entrenched the team is within the civic con-sciousness (or not) and the im-portance of organic growth.GB: (One thing) which is a little bit tough as a supporters group is trying to find how we fit within the bigger fanbase. As you can imagine, with supporters, a lot of them just want to drink beer and swear. I’ve been to BMO Field, and when you’ve got that whole end there, where everyone’s chanting, swearing, whatever they’re doing, it just sounds like fun. But when you’ve got four guys swearing on one side of the field, there’s no

doubt who’s swearing, and exactly what they said.

There’s been a lot of debate on the supporters side about how we can do that. We’ve been having some discus-sion, maybe we need our own section. But I was there at the beginning and we had our own section: It was four guys, and we looked like the cheer squad. No one knew they could come to that section and join us. We were actively promoting them to come and join us. We just looked like four fat guys in the corner that, for some rea-son, were screaming their heads off.

There are a lot of kids there, we had some complaints brought back to us through the club, or sometimes to us directly -- somebody’s mom saying something to us. We’ve been really struggling with how to deal with that, how to keep that hardcore passion like and sort of temper that a little bit. It’s not the glamorous side of the supporters’ section, but I think it’s important.

How important do you think it is, in helping to promote the team, that FC Edmonton does field a number of young, promis-ing and local players?GB: We started to feel we had some high-profile local players, guys like Shaun Saiko and a few others, ones that were sort of “local boy makes good” stories, but for whatever rea-son, which we are still not clear on, they didn’t click well with the coach-ing staff. Matt Lam was let go, and there was some issue with Saiko be-ing asked not to attend a game. These are little signals that something isn’t right there, and a lot of people -- es-pecially in the supporters -- turned on the coaches quite quickly. The fact that we were losing hand over fist wasn’t really helping. But that was a big sticking point for us.

We take a lot of pride in being ev-erybody’s second-favourite team (in Canada). We like that. I’d like to see that continue. ... I think one thing that I’d like to see, we kinda jump on it, mostly on Twitter -- don’t forget there’s an FC Edmonton. We’ve got the Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver MLS teams. But if we can get buy-in from the other supporters as well -- as in, hey, don’t forget about these guys -- even commenting about how the season’s going out in the open, not hidden away in the fan forums, that would help us, to shed some light, and it also adds legitimacy a little bit.

One thing that’s really struck me is that a lot of people are really sur-prised about the level of play in the NASL. They were interviewing some lady on the street about whether or not the team needs a new stadium, and she’s like, “oh, I don’t know why, they used to play on mud fields.” This is a pro team we’re talking about! It’s not a low level either, it’s the second division here. These guys are good.

Speaking of the “man on the street” sentiment... do you think the protracted debate in Ed-monton about a new NHL arena might make it more difficult to get public buy-in into the idea of a new stadium for FCE?GB: Absolutely. All the FCESG members have been jumping all over the Edmonton Journal comments sections and pointing out that we’re talking a very small amount of money

compared to what the Katz Group is talking about for the Oilers. We’re somewhere around 5% of that. People just have this idea like, “What? An-other one? Oh my God! What’s this world coming to? Why the hell for a soccer team, of all things?”

One thing that really bothers me is ... it’s kind of a cart before the horse issue with a lot of people, “prove your-self and then you can get this soccer stadium if you deserve it”. I’m saying, you wouldn’t stand for hockey play-ers playing a game -- even if it was AHL-level hockey -- being played on a curling rink or a speed-skating oval. No hardcore fan would stand for that. You couldn’t get people to support that. But yet, y’know, we’ll play on a field that’s made for football but has 47 other different lines for everything from field hockey to lacrosse to soc-cer, and if they’re good enough, they’ll get a following. People who are real soccer fans take one look at that and think, “my God, I can’t watch this.” So that’s a real tough thing to sell.

TO: Hockey is king in Edmonton, so trying to break down that percep-tion of soccer being a sport for pan-sies, you get that a lot, and we deal with comments like that. But all in a day’s work for the FC Edmonton Sup-porters Group.

Even in the MLS cities, where they’ve had some success, it al-ways is a tough sell in terms of gaining that widespread accep-tance of the team’s place within the city’s sporting conscious-ness. Do you guys feel there is progress being made, in terms of the team being legitimately accepted -- not at the same level, but in the same conversation as, say, the Oilers and the Eskimos?

GB: Tobi said hockey is king, but I’d say hockey is king and the entire royal family. The Eskimos are there, for sure. There is a sweet spot be-tween the end of hockey season and when the Eskimos’ season starts up that I think is key. I can’t say FCE is right up there yet. If you look at the sports page even in the summer, you’ve got 17 articles about whatever contract negotiations the Oilers are in, something about the Eskimos, and then if you’re lucky, you get a little tiny thing at the bottom.

Even if you look at the Edmon-ton Journal website, soccer is un-derneath, like, professional mixed martial arts. And even when they do report stuff, most of the stuff is about whatever Toronto, Vancouver or Mon-treal is doing. So I don’t know if we’re at that level yet.

But you’re cautiously optimistic about continuing to make in-roads in 2013?GB: For me, I think one of the most encouraging signs by the club -- I don’t know if they completely un-derstand this, but I think we’ve seen some movement toward understand-ing who their fanbase really is. Early on, we had lots of discussion under the first general manager, Mel Kowal-chuk, who was a local sports and busi-ness guy, who’s been involved mostly with baseball. There was a real idea that this would be sold like triple-A baseball: Bring your kids out, we’ll have fireworks at the park.

They don’t really have an under-standing of the soccer mom thing go-

ing on. There’s tons of soccer players, but none of the parents are really fans, they’re just doing it because their kids are -- and if it comes down to an FC Edmonton game versus my kid’s soc-cer tournament in Calgary, they’re gone. There’s no continuity between that. What you need is the market of the 18-to-35-year-old males who’ve got nothing better to do in the sum-mer. The ones who, for whatever rea-son, don’t like CFL football. Those are the ones you have to target, and you have to bring them in.

The soccer mom culture in Edmonton is not going to be the solid foundation that it seemed that they started with. That’s a very supporters(-centric) view on this, but like I said, I was there the very first day they announced it. I walked up to Tom Fath and said, “I’m here, I’m part of the Voyageurs, a long-time Voya-geur. What’s your plan to engage the soccer culture?” If you’re looking at, three years ago, Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, they’ve really built their success -- especially Toronto, early on -- on that soccer supporters thing. “What’s your plan to engage that?” He just had this blank look on his face.

Now we’re seeing engagement with us. We kinda feel like it’s a little bit of a deal with the devil, because everybody talks to us, some who are involved with the Southsiders, who say, “Don’t get too close with the club, because you’ve got to keep your dis-tance.” But we’re not really there yet. We’re very much hoping to help them in any way that we can.

With the team getting more at-tention -- and your group in par-ticular -- has there been thought given to a different name for the group?Both: (laughs)TO: Definitely.GB: Here’s the thing. We were pretty consciously not naming ourselves early on. Even now, we don’t re-ally have a home. With the Vancouver guys, it’s the south side, it’s an organic name that they’ve come up with. The Red Patch Boys and U-Sector in To-ronto, it’s much more organic. We felt like, we didn’t have a team, we didn’t have a place to call our own -- the Foote Soldiers was bandied about, but now we don’t even play at Foote Field anymore, so it wouldn’t make sense.

We’ve been thinking about it, but nothing has really stood out yet. We do have an affinity for rabbits. Some people like it more than others. I like it quite a bit, because there’s an hon-est-to-God story about it, and some mythology we’ve built up around it. Our very first season, in our home opener, right after Toronto smoked us in the very first game played in Edmonton for real. Toronto walked in and killed us in Commonwealth. Then the week after, we had our home opener for the NASL season and Mon-treal walked in and smoked us 5-1 or 5-0 or something.TO: 5-0.GB: It was terrible, because we had people say “OK, I’ll give this thing a kick at the can” and you walk in and, “oh, this is not worth my time, this field is crap, and we got beat so sad.” We got better, we went on the road and won some games. But the next time Montreal came to play us, this rabbit -- there’s these rabbits all over the city, these little grey-brown non-

descript rabbits -- he wouldn’t leave the field. It was Astroturf, I don’t know what he was eating.

But he parked himself right out in front of the Montreal goal, the defenders were trying to chase him off, he kept coming back. We won the game 1-0 over Montreal. So he became this de facto rally rabbit for FC Edmonton supporters. We started cheering “bring out the rabbit!” and all this.

For us it was a good luck charm, we got our payback against Montreal, the next up-and-coming MLS team. ... The club sort of caught onto it as well. They’ve been using it a little bit. To me, this is something that’s been organically grown, which is cool, it’s the way I like it. It’s not some corpo-rate focus group-sponsored mascot that’s been parachuted in on top of us.

So maybe a rabbit mascot is the way to go to draw people to Clarke Stadium?GB: Well, to be honest, I like it... it’s got a story with it.TO: It’s better than what we have right now.GB: A big soccer ball with legs. It’s the official mascot.TO: That’s pretty much it.

That sounds kind of terrifying.TO: It kind of is.GB: It’s also blue, so the whole “blue balls” thing... it’s a popular chant.

If you’ll accept an outsider’s opin-ion, “blue balls” should not find a way into the new name of your group, in any way, shape or form.

GB: Another thing... we gave it a lot of thought, and Edmonton is actu-ally quite a hard city to come up with one thing that describes it, right? The oil thing’s been done to death. We’ve got this really eclectic history. I’ve done a lot of research on the city’s his-tory, looking for something to latch onto, and it’s not easy.

TO: It’s full of contradictions.GB: The nickname a lot of people

use for the team, the Eddies, was actually started by the supporters group. We started that. Whether people like it or don’t like it, think it’s clever or not clever, it depends on who you ask. But to me, at least it’s some-thing that was organically started.

Somebody asked me at a game one time, “what the heck does FC stand for?” “Football Club.” “We don’t have a real name?” “What name do you need?” So it’s an uphill battle with the name.

Greg and Tobi are part of the FC Edmonton Supporters Group, whose website will be launching soon. They also tweet on behalf of the group (@FCESG), and have started the #FCEd5k campaign, in an effort to help sell out the team’s home games at Clarke Stadium this season.

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On Saturday February 2, 2013, FC Edmonton celebrated three years on the pitch. When other soc-cer teams in Edmonton have failed to reach the landmark of a three-year anniversary, FC Edmonton continues to grow and looks forward to the future in the City of Champions.

The Pint Downtown was full with players, staff and fans to do the official meet & greet with new players and to sign some autographs, have good company and eat some delicious cake.

Owner Tom Fath joined in with the rest of the crowd in a lively song of “Happy Birthday” to which

he added “and many more”! He and new general manager, Rod Proudfoot shared a similar sense of excitement at the event.

“It’s a make-or-break year for us,” Proudfoot told the crowd before the cake was served, “and I’m glad to see all the support here today!”

FC Edmonton’s season starts in two months and the teams training camp starts a matter of weeks.

FC Edmonton Turns Three!Eddies ownership, staff and players were joined by fans for the team’s third year on the pitch

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By: Richard Scott

Edmonton Ab, (February 4-5, 2013) - Canadian Olympic medal win-ners Karina LeBlanc, Diana Mathe-son, Christine Sinclair and Rhian Wilkinson have been taking their medals - and soccer skills - across the country. Since winning a bronze medal at the London 2012 Olympics, the quartet have been visiting com-munities to participate in soccer clin-ics and to meet as many young fans as possible.

“We want to get as many kids to touch the medal as possible,” said LeBlanc.

The quartet most recently vis-ited Calgary and Edmonton as special guests of the Alberta Soccer Associa-tion (one of the provincial regions in Canada). In Edmonton - one of the Host Cities for the FIFA Women’s World Cup Canada 2015 -

The quartet met 400 youth soccer players at the Commonwealth Sta-dium Fieldhouse (soccer home to FC Edmonton).

At the London 2012 Women’s Olympic Football Tournament, CON-CACAF nations won two of the three medals, with USA winning gold and

Canada winning bronze. Also at Lon-don 2012 on the men’s side, Mexico won its first Olympic gold.

In the coming years, CONCACAF will help welcome the world when

Costa Rica hosts the FIFA U-17 Wom-en’s World Cup in 2014 and Canada hosts both the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup in 2014 and FIFA Women’s World Cup in 2015.

Olympic heroes meet Canada’s next generation

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NASL Concludes Successful Combine in Fort Lauderdale

Match Reports: CanMNT vs DenMark and USA

NASL Virginia Team Identity Revealed: Virginia Cavalry FC

Day 1 RecapThe 2013 NASL Combine which is recognized as a leading pathway to playing professional soccer in the region kicked off Friday afternoon at Lockhart Stadium, home of the NASL’s Fort Lauderdale Strikers.

In the opening game of the Com-bine the Red team drew 2-2 with the Blue team. New Zealand Youth International Tom Jackson struck twice for Red, the first coming off an efficient cross from Kendall Sealy and the second coming after some excel-lent build up play in the area. For the Blue team goals came from Andres Vargas and Juan Gonzalez. Blue was led in the attack by the cultured mid-field play of Laurent Merlin, a former Olympique Marseille and Chivas USA midfield. James Mack, formerly of the Charleston Battery also stood out in the match for the Blue team.

The second game featured former Barclays Premier League Best XI and France World Cup Defender Pas-cal Chimbonda. The match flowed nicely in the first half with chances for both teams. The breakthrough for the Green team finally came in min-ute sixty three when Steven Miller finished an opportunity. Just min-utes later, the White team equalized thanks to former FCM Aubervilliers midfielder Ferrety Sousa.

“I thought the first game was a typical first day of a combine game, but as the day went on, but the second game I thought was much better and those guys really got after it especially in the first half. I think the level was quite good, “ Fort Lauderdale Strikers Head Coach Daryl Shore.

Ricky Hill Head Coach of the NASL Champion Tampa Bay Rowdies said “we have nice playing conditions here in sunny Fort Lauderdale and the standard has been very good.”

The NASL Combine resumes Sat-urday at 1:30pm ET at Lockhart Sta-dium and is open to the public.

Day 2 RecapThe 2013 NASL Combine resumed on Saturday afternoon at Lockhart Sta-dium in sunny Fort Lauderdale.

Green and Red drew 1-1 in the first match of the Saturday session. Red’s Jesus Toscanini formerly of CD Torque in Uruguay opened the scor-ing finishing on a low driven cross from former Pittsburgh Riverhound Dawyne Smith. Red had an opportu-nity to double the lead shortly before halftime as Craig Wilson broke away from Green defense but he was denied by former Dayton Dutch Lion Corey Whisenhunt.

In the second half, Green came out strong with former Premier League Best XI and France World Cup vet-eran Pascal Chimbinda shifting from right back into the middle, solidifying a defense that had been opened up in the first 45. About midway throught the second half, 22 year-old George Tor equalized for Green as the match opened up with chances both ways. The 1-1 final scoreline was a fair re-flection of the play.

Game two featured five goals in second half action, with Blue draw-ing White 3-3. Blue struck first with an excellent run and finish by former Charleston Battery midfielder James Mack. The game opened up after half-time when Sean Arters took on three defenders in the box, rounded the keeper and slotted home a clean finish at the near post. With the score 2-0 in favor of Blue, White struck with three consecutive goals in a ten minute pe-riod. Goals by Robbie Tice, Mickael Oliveira Barrosa and Uzi Tayou gave White a 3-2 lead. However, Blue equalized when former Chivas USA midfielder Laurent Merlin who was a standout performer again on day two of the combine rounded out the scoring in minute 77, which savaged a draw for the Blue team.

Minnesota Stars Head Coach Manny Lagos said “ the level and professionalism (of the combine) was very high and the field is one of the nicest I have seen in the last few years which creates a great setting for the games. We have had a lot of energy on the field today and it has been very impressive.”

Combine Wraps UpThe 2013 NASL Combine concludes Sunday with the first game kicking off at 9am.The 2013 NASL Combine con-cluded in Fort Lauderdale on Sunday afternoon. In the two matches today, Blue defeated Green 2-1 and White defeated Red 3-1.

Juan Gonzalez opened the scoring for Blue early on in the first match of the day. George Tor who has had a solid week had an opportunity on a breakaway to level the proceedings but put his shot just wide. In the sec-ond half Murphy Campbell leveled the score before Andres Vargas tapped in a loose ball set up by a tight angled deflected shot by Tamba Samba.

In the second match of the day White defeated Red 3-1, with former Fort Lauderdale Striker and Atlanta Silverback David Santamaria opening the scoring in minute four for White. Tom Jackson nearly equalized for the Red team a few moments later and Red kept the pressure on with Charles Rodrgiuez equalizing in minute 24. In the second half White scored twice, thanks to Kaoru Forbess low, hard long distance strike and Uzi Tayou’s set piece header.

FC Edmonton Head Coach Colin Miller who in his dual role as interim Canadian National Team Manager led his side to a 0-0 result vs. the favored United States on Wednesday remarked on the Combine “ the at-titude was good and some good goals scored and some excellent football this weekend.”

The NASL Combine is an annual event which last season saw almost 15% of its participants end up on NASL rosters at the opening of the season. This week at NASL.com we will have more photos, videos and player features from this past week-end’s combine.

An inexperienced Canadian team, fea-turing six players earning their first caps, was comprehensively beaten 4:0 by Denmark in a Men’s Inter-national Friendly in Tucson, AZ.

Nineteen-year-old Danish strik-er Andreas Cornelius scored a hat trick and Kasper Lorentzen added a marker as Canada struggled to match Denmark’s quality on the occasion.

Canada had expected an uphill bat-tle, as the roster for the team’s January 2013 camp in Arizona and Texas is the youngest squad assembled since May 2006 – but making no excuses – Inter-im Head Coach Colin Miller stated he was ‘disappointed’ with the final result.

“We are absolutely disappointed with the score line, but it was an in-credible learning experience for ev-eryone on our team,” said Miller.

“We’re disappointed in the manner of the goals we gave away; but there are aspects of our play we are pleased with.

“We improved in the second half, but you can’t give players of (Denmark’s) quality as much time as we did in the first half.”

Kyle Bekker, Simon Thomas, Evan James, Kyler Porter, Philippe Davies and Mason Trafford all made their first senior appearances on the day.

Terry Dunfield captained the side for the first time.

A young Canadian team put in a mature performance to earn a 0:0 draw against USA in a Men’s International Friendly in Hous-ton, TX on Tuesday 29 January.

Canada was resilient under spells of American pressure but did well to create chances of its own as well.

Dwayne De Rosario had arguably the best chance of the match, but his vol-ley was beaten away by USA goalkeep-er Sean Johnson in the 6th minute.

After a season-opening loss to Den-mark, Interim Head Coach Colin Mill-er was pleased with the way his play-ers responded against the Americans.

“We were disappointed with as-

pects of our performance on Saturday but the boys showed everything you would expect of Canadian football in terms of heart, passion and endeav-our tonight,” Miller told CanadaSoc-cerTV after the match in Houston.

“I’m very proud of the play-ers, everyone has been totally committed since I’ve arrived.”

Canadian keeper Simon Thomas earned a clean sheet in his first start.

Canada’s next scheduled fix-ture is a Men’s International Friendly against Japan to take place in Doha, Qatar on 22 March.

Ashburn, VA – February 6, 2013 – Bearing a strong, classic name VIP Sports & Entertainment’s North American Soccer League franchise -- previously referred to by the generic term “NASL Virginia” -- has estab-lished an identity and will be known as Virginia Cavalry FC.

This seminal announcement comes after NASL Virginia fielded thou-sands of submissions from across Vir-ginia, the D.C. metro area and around the world, made via NASLVirginia.com, Facebook.com/NASLVirginia, through Twitter.com/NASLVirginia and a unique iPhone app.

The team name contest, dubbed “Kick The Vote ‘13,” even sparked interest from Hollywood, with an extremely clever, funny episode of “Joe & Buzz” (www.joeandbuzz.com) centered entirely around the Kick-The-Vote contest. Their suggestion of “The Virginia Beards,” while inven-tive, doesn’t completely fit in a state founded by a bunch of guys wearing wigs.

“Virginia Cavalry FC is tremen-dous name for Virginia’s first high-level professional soccer club,” said Bob Farren President and CEO of VIP Sports & Entertainment. “Not only does it connect with our area’s long military history and its well-known tradition as horse country, it also sig-nifies our club will work together as a single unit for a common goal. Boldly carrying the name ‘Cavalry’ as our fans roar encouragement, our play-ers will feel the impulse to saddle up and charge forward in the relentless pursuit of victory.”

The Cavalry unveiled their new brand at a star-studded event held at Bungalow Lakehouse in Sterling, Virginia. NBC Sports’ Russ Thaler hosted the event, which featured US Soccer Hall of Famers, and Men’s National Team Veterans John Harkes and Eddie Pope. Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell welcomed the team to the Commonwealth via video. A high-light of the event was when 14 year old Connor Rouch of Leesburg, VA was awarded the grand prize of tickets to the inaugural Cavalry game in 2014 and an official home jersey.

The team’s website is http://www.VirginiaCavalry.com, and they can be found on social media at Facebook.com/VirginiaCavalry and Twitter.com/CavalryFC.

The Cavalry released a number of images, none of which are the final team logo. The logo and team uniforms will be unveiled soon via the Cavalry’s social media platforms directly to our fans. A high-resolution version of the word marks can be found at http://www.virginiacavalry.com/media.

“Really, we couldn’t have asked for a better name from our growing base of enthusiastic fans,” said Mark Simpson, former MLS champion D.C. United goalkeeper now serving as the Cavalry’s Director of Soccer Operations. “This is a name that players will be proud to wear on their jersey shields, and fans will have fun associating with in the stands and in public.”

Sports fans and fellow NASL teams: Here come the Cavalry.

Colin Miller - Photo by CSA

WWW.FCEDMONTON.COM

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Eddies Reserve Members Earn Individual National Team Call-UpsAllan Zebie and Hanson Boakai to join respective national teams in upcoming training camps

Canada’s Men’s U-20 team has an-nounced its 23-player roster for a training camp in Mexico City, Mexico which will run from 11 to 16 February ahead of the 2013 CONCACAF U-20 Championship in Puebla, Mexico which will take place from 18 Febru-ary to 2 March.

The four highest-placing teams at the CONCACAF Championship will qualify for the FIFA U-20 World Cup Turkey 2013 in June.

“It will be a difficult tournament,” said U-20 Head Coach Nick Dasovic.

“Our goal for now is to make it to the quarter-final match which will give us a one-off chance to qualify for the FIFA U-20 World Cup in June.

“Whether we enter the match as a first or second seed from our group, we will deal with that.”

To qualify for the FIFA U-20 World Cup, Canada will need to finish in either first or second place in Group B that also includes Cuba and Nicara-gua. If the Canadians are successful in qualifying for the knock-out stages they will feature in a quarter-final match-up against a team from Group A with a spot at Turkey 2013 on the line.

Dasovic stated that his team will be buoyed by an increased number of players playing in professional environments both at home and abroad, but also cautioned that in the same way that Canada has improved its player development structure in recent years – the same can be said about many of the competing nations.

“The strength of the squad is helped by the professional club academies in Canada and by the fact that we have a number of players on the squad that play in Europe,” said Dasovic.

“But at the same time, we need to realize that as we get better – all of our competition is getting better as well.”

Canada will begin the tournament on 18 February with a clash against Cuba, before taking on Nicaragua on 22 February.

Should Canada qualify for the knock-out stages, the all-important quarter-final match would take place on 26 February.

All matches at the competition will be played at either the Estadio Cuauhtemoc or the Estadio Olimpico de C.U. in Puebla.

All tournament matches will be streamed live on CONCACAF.com. On-site coverage of the CONCACAF Championship will also be provided on CanadaSoccerTV.

Canada will need to trim its roster down to 20 players ahead of the CON-CACAF Championship.

CANADA1- GK- Ricky Gomes | POR / Sport Clube

de Mirandela2- FB- Jon Dollery | ENG / Crawley

Town FC3- FB- Marco Lapenna | GER / FC Er-

zgebirge Aue4- CB- Doneil Henry | CAN / Toronto

FC5- CB- Daniel Stanese | GER / FC Nürn-

berg Reserve6- M- Samuel Piette | GER / Fortuna

Düsseldorf7- M- Ben Fisk | CAN / Vancouver

Whitecaps FC U-238- M - Bryce Alderson | CAN / Vancou-

ver Whitecaps FC9- F- Caleb Clarke | CAN / Vancouver

Whitecaps FC10- M- Keven Aleman | ESP / Real Val-

ladolid11- M- Michael Petrasso | ENG / Queens

Park Rangers12- M- Dylan Carreiro | ENG / Queens

Park Rangers13- M- Alessandro Riggi | ESP / Celta

de Vigo14- F- Yassin Essa | CAN / Vancouver

Whitecaps FC Residency15- CB- Manjrekar James | HUN /

PMFC-MATIAS16- M- Mauro Eustáquio | POR / Sport-

ing Clube de Pombal17- F- Anthony Jackson-Hamel | CAN /

Académie Impact Montréal18- GK- Maxime Crépeau | CAN / Aca-

démie Impact Montréal19- FB- Jordan Murrell | USA / Syra-

cuse University 20- M- Zakaria Messoudi | CAN / Aca-

démie Impact Montréal21- M- Ben McKendry | USA / Univer-

sity of New Mexico22- F- Stefan Vukovic | Unattached /

sans club23- FB- Allan Zebie | CAN / Edmon-ton FC Reserve

Canada’s Men’s U-17 Team has announced its 20-player roster an upcoming camp in Sunrise, FL and Costa Rica running from 5-15 Febru-ary, 2013.

Canada will train for five days in Florida before heading to Costa Rica for a pair of friendly matches against

the Costa Ricans on 12 and 14 Febru-ary respectively.

For U-17 Coach Sean Fleming, the upcoming camp represents an op-portunity to make some final tweaks before the team takes part in the 2013 CONCACAF U-17 Championship in Panama in April – which serves as the qualification tournament for the FIFA U-17 World Cup UAE 2013 beginning in October.

“This will be our last camp before the CONCACAF Championship,” said Fleming.

“We have two new players com-ing in and we look forward to a pair of great matches in Central America against Costa Rica.

“This will be an opportunity for us to make some final changes and improvements; and focus on build-ing the team’s chemistry ahead of the qualifiers in April.”

The two new players entering the group are forwards Luca Uccello and Derek Cornelius.

CANADAGK- Marco Carducci | CAN / Vancouver

Whitecaps FC ResidencyGK- Daniel Milton | CAN / Ajax Thun-

derCB- Alex Comsia | CAN / Vancouver

Whitecaps FC ResidencyCB- Mathieu Laurent | CAN / Missis-

saugaCB- Elias Roubos | CAN / Toronto FC

AcademyFB- Kevon Black | CAN / Toronto FC

AcademyFB- Ian Fernandes | CAN / Toronto FC

AcademyFB- Aron Mkungilwa | CAN / Académie

Impact MontréalM- Hanson Boakai | CAN / FC Ed-

monton ReserveM- Marco Bustos | CAN / Vancouver

Whitecaps FC ResidencyM- Mikaël Cantave | FRA / FC NantesM- Matthew Chow | CAN / Vancouver

Whitecaps FC ResidencyM- Kianz Gonzales-Froese | CAN / Van-

couver Whitecaps F C ResidencyM- Jordan Haynes | CAN / Vancouver

Whitecaps FC ResidencyM- Derick Sequeira | CAN / Toronto FC

AcademyF- Paco Deckers | NED / sc HeerenveenF- Andrew Gordon | CAN / Hearts Az-

zuriF- Jordan Hamilton | CAN / Toronto FC

AcademyF- Luca Uccello | CAN / Toronto FC

AcademyF- Derek Cornelius | Unionville SC

By Steve Sandor

This week, FC Edmonton supporters — and followers of the Canadian na-tional program, too — got some very good news.

Mallan Roberts now has his permanent-resident status. And, if all goes smoothly, he should have a Canadian passport sometime in the summer.

The 20-year-old defender came to Canada as a nine-year-old, as he and his father fled Sierra Leone, a country that had struggled with a long civil war. For more than a decade, Roberts was in Canada as a landed immi-grant. So, even though he’s heralded as maybe the best centre-back pros-pect in the country, he couldn’t play for Canada.

There’s no doubt that, had he been in possession of a passport, Roberts would have been in the last U-20 cy-cle. Had he been a Canadian citizen, he’d be the talk of soccer fans from coast-to-coast. Yes, he has that much upside.

And, for FC Edmonton fans who had to endure watching a team that struggled on set pieces and suffered from a severe lack of size in the back line in 2012, the paperwork problems meant that Roberts — even though he was a man amongst boys in the Re-serve side — couldn’t make the jump. As a landed immigrant, he wouldn’t have been able to cross the border for the NASL road games in the United States. So, he had to stick with the Reserves.

But, getting his residency is more than about crossing the border to play soccer for Roberts. It means that he might be able to see his mother for the first time since he was nine.

“My father and I came to Canada, my mom went to Australia,” he said. “I haven’t been able to see her. I Skype her a lot, and I have a brother and sister there who I’ve never been able to go visit. On Skype, my brother asks me why I don’t come to visit, he doesn’t understand the distance. He thinks I only live five minutes away. Now, hopefully, I’ll be able to take a couple of weeks and be able to see them.”

Roberts is known for a fearless, some might even say, reckless style of defending. Last year, in a match against Edmonton Scottish — the team that would eventually lose in the men’s amateur final — Roberts crashed through forward Vince Bus-

tamente in order to win the ball in the air. Bustamente required stitches and was concussed.

But he doesn’t want to be remem-bered only as a bruiser. He said he wants to be known as a player who wants the ball on his feet, and can play out of the back. Yes, there have been some growing pains — and some scares for Reserves coach and Ed-dies assistant Jeff Paulus. But Paulus knows what Roberts brings — the defender was a linchpin on the 2011 NAIT side that Paulus coached to a national college title, going unde-feated in the process.

When you first look at Roberts, what strikes you is his size. It’s not that he’s well past the six-foot mark, but that he’s filled out, more like he plays like the other football. Well, in fact, he did. At M.E. Lazerte High School, he played quarterback, wide receiver and safety. He went to Al-berta’s Senior Bowl, for high-school football all-stars, as a receiver. After high school, he played for the Edmon-ton Huskies junior program, and even spent a few weeks training with the CFL Eskimos.

“I still have some friends, some old coaches, who ask me when I’m coming back to play football,” said Roberts.

The defender still has vivid memo-ries of the first time he kicked a soccer ball in Sierra Leone.

“I have a pretty good memory of the place,” he said. “We played a lot, and we played barefoot. I remember coming here (to Canada) and think-ing that everyone here is playing with boots on, wow that’s different. But as a kid, I got pushed around a lot.”

And, the way he was bullied on the pitch taught him that he should be the bully.

Roberts hasn’t officially made the jump up to FCE’s first team, but now that the paperwork is in place, you have to think the path is clear for him.

For Canadian soccer fans, it’s a case of being excited about Roberts’ future and, yet, wondering what could have been. Would Roberts’ presence been that little bit that the previous U-20 would have needed to emerge from the CONCACAF Championships and qualify for the U-20 World Cup?

“I’ll be happy if the opportunity comes to play for the national team, at any level. I’d like to go as far as I can in soccer.”

All that needs to happen is the citi-zenship. And it’s only months away.

Mallan Roberts: The top CB prospect in Canada is set to become Canadian

Mallan Roberts, in the yellow pinnie, participating in an FC Edmonton Reserve team drill. Photo by: Tony Lewis

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