FC Edmonton - 2022 Season Thread

[Big_M]

Just now, Big_M said:

Ulbricht gets recalled and transferred to his former club Phönix Lübeck in German D4 and Kane goes on loan to Edmonton

YORK UNITED FC LOANS FORWARD MAMADOU KANE TO FC EDMONTON

 

[Pottsy3]

While this team is far from a contender, I feel like a few of the pieces who have been given an opportunity this year can hopefully  be building blocks (assuming they can be retained post-loans).

Bissainthe has been solid since coming in and provides an aerial threat, Timoteo has been basically the only creator in the midfield and Bitar has grown into the season, finally finding his footing + goal scoring touch that he’s brought with him through USPORTS. Warschewski clearly has the highest level of any in the squad, but as an international I have a harder time believing he’ll be back. The biggest surprise has probably been Higgins, his stint as a pure defender has been much improved on his time in Ottawa.

 

really, it’s just too bad that Shome hasn’t proved his quality of old.

[narduch]

On Northern Futbol Nef said Edmonton has a new owner and it will be announced in the next 2 months.

[yothat2]

On 7/14/2022 at 8:39 PM, Pottsy3 said:

While this team is far from a contender, I feel like a few of the pieces who have been given an opportunity this year can hopefully  be building blocks (assuming they can be retained post-loans).

Bissainthe has been solid since coming in and provides an aerial threat, Timoteo has been basically the only creator in the midfield and Bitar has grown into the season, finally finding his footing + goal scoring touch that he’s brought with him through USPORTS. Warschewski clearly has the highest level of any in the squad, but as an international I have a harder time believing he’ll be back. The biggest surprise has probably been Higgins, his stint as a pure defender has been much improved on his time in Ottawa.

 

really, it’s just too bad that Shome hasn’t proved his quality of old.

Still waiting for shome to show he's one of the top 5 player in the league. 

[toontownman]

Just now, yothat2 said:

Still waiting for shome to show he's one of the top 5 player in the league. 

A skeptic would say it's clear this isn't his day job and he has one eye on his career after soccer. He should have been the MVP at the Eddie's and gamechanging/captain material. We have not seen it yet as you say.

[yothat2]

2 hours ago, toontownman said:

A skeptic would say it's clear this isn't his day job and he has one eye on his career after soccer. He should have been the MVP at the Eddie's and gamechanging/captain material. We have not seen it yet as you say.

I don't think it's career or educated related. Kid is brilliant & discipline. He already shown he can manage multiple priorities at the high level. He's took an eng degree. 

He was playing day in and day out for Colin Miller in the NASL (hard ass) 

Played under Thierry Henry in CFMTL. Might have broke his confidence. It's been two years since then. 

Think it comes down to performance. & impact in the game. Maybe Koch is system but agreed we haven't seen it the game changing material. 

[yothat2]

with the long break in home games 

 

Fced should get some friendly for the back 11 or depth guys against edmonton Scottish or whitecaps pls next or fc Manitoba 

build on the attendance not waste the summer weather

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

 

 

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

Might explain why things were sounding good on a new FCE owner and then appeared to stall. The other side of the story:

 

[Cheeta]

LOL.

And who said any publicity is good publicity?

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

 

[yothat2]

On 7/29/2022 at 3:18 AM, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

 

why doesn't Steven Sandor apply for the GM of Fc Edmonton. He has enough experience being an sports journalist. 

[red card]

On 7/29/2022 at 5:18 AM, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

 

Riverhawks average attendance this year is 2,342 for 27 games. Stingers averaged 1,967 this year.

Both are 1-2k higher than FCE but I wouldn't deem it is by a "wide margin".

The way Sandor has been going on about this for a while, I thought the Stingers were getting over 5k. His magazine also has ticket giveaway promos with the Stingers.

Most of his ideas seem to imply we should go back to the glory days of MLS 1.0 or Edmonton in NASL.

[shermanator]

Kind of funny that as soon as Sandor stops being paid to cover FC Edmonton, he changes tune and shits all over them and the league at every opportunity. Although now that we know his magazine works with the Stingers, perhaps it's just a case of following the money...

It's a little bit pathetic how much he pines for the glory days of the NASL to be honest, completely glossing over the instability that league had and some of the shenanigans such as an owner ripping out the turf at the last minute or clubs joining mid season. Or his buddy Fath (who runs a construction company FFS) having the new stands at Clarke delayed by 18 months by trying to skirt the permitting process at the city.

He seems to forget there were a lot of lean years for FC Edmonton in the NASL days as well. They drew sub 2000 for the Impact in 2014 and just over 2000 in 2016 as well. All those years they were never able to get supporters to stick. For me, that's not on the league, that's on the ownership group and their complete inability to put out a professional product.

Hopefully Edmonton is able to find a new ownership group, one that takes the club seriously as well.

Edited August 2, 2022 by shermanator

[yothat2]

11 hours ago, shermanator said:

Kind of funny that as soon as Sandor stops being paid to cover FC Edmonton, he changes tune and shits all over them and the league at every opportunity. Although now that we know his magazine works with the Stingers, perhaps it's just a case of following the money...

It's a little bit pathetic how much he pines for the glory days of the NASL to be honest, completely glossing over the instability that league had and some of the shenanigans such as an owner ripping out the turf at the last minute or clubs joining mid season. Or his buddy Fath (who runs a construction company FFS) having the new stands at Clarke delayed by 18 months by trying to skirt the permitting process at the city.

He seems to forget there were a lot of lean years for FC Edmonton in the NASL days as well. They drew sub 2000 for the Impact in 2014 and just over 2000 in 2016 as well. All those years they were never able to get supporters to stick. For me, that's not on the league, that's on the ownership group and their complete inability to put out a professional product.

Hopefully Edmonton is able to find a new ownership group, one that takes the club seriously as well.

İmagine all the Insider information he has on the faths incompetent or lack of understanding on how to run a soccer club but he keeps bashing the league.

 

Cpl is transfering players on a consistent basis lately in comparison to the nasl. 

 

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

How is pointing out that CanPL could potentially learn something from the approaches used locally in Edmonton by low budget pro teams in other sports bashing the league? 

[red card]

14 hours ago, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

How is pointing out that CanPL could potentially learn something from the approaches used locally in Edmonton by low budget pro teams in other sports bashing the league? 

Read his twitter timeline. Largely negative on CPL and domestic soccer overall including the MLS . He has recently complained about FCE's travel & playing on Canada Day & CPL playing midweek matches.

He has a June thread with quotes like: 

- there has been a stunning lack of success for the pro game in this country

- #CanPL has failed, terribly, to move the needle. There's less interest in MLS than there was even five years ago.

- you look to a #CanChamp final which had some regional interest, a '21 #CanPL final that no major news organization in Canada bothered to cover.

- #CanPL has burned many bridges in a very short time. A lot of people who worked so hard to support this league when it started are alienated. You can argue that it needs a reset.

- Why is it that there is no relation to the success of the national teams and the health of our domestic game?

- Soccer in Canada has, for too long, been fuelled by arrogance, regionalism, an insular mentality and the feeling that just by playing a soccer game, you should shame people into supporting it.

- I've covered a lot of sports. A lot of leagues. Soccer is by far the most difficult. It's tougher to cover soccer in Canada than the NHL, because requests, questions are often met with roadblocks or indifference. And then we wonder why mainstream media walks away.

- And I know so many people who DID love soccer, and won't go near games, now — other than their kids' games or volunteering in the community ranks. No sport in Canada chews people up like soccer does. So many people fighting over a tiny pie. It's crazy.

[SthMelbRed]

1 hour ago, red card said:

Read his twitter timeline. Largely negative on CPL and domestic soccer overall including the MLS . He has recently complained about FCE's travel & playing on Canada Day & CPL playing midweek matches.

He has a June thread with quotes like: 

- there has been a stunning lack of success for the pro game in this country

- #CanPL has failed, terribly, to move the needle. There's less interest in MLS than there was even five years ago.

- you look to a #CanChamp final which had some regional interest, a '21 #CanPL final that no major news organization in Canada bothered to cover.

- #CanPL has burned many bridges in a very short time. A lot of people who worked so hard to support this league when it started are alienated. You can argue that it needs a reset.

- Why is it that there is no relation to the success of the national teams and the health of our domestic game?

- Soccer in Canada has, for too long, been fuelled by arrogance, regionalism, an insular mentality and the feeling that just by playing a soccer game, you should shame people into supporting it.

- I've covered a lot of sports. A lot of leagues. Soccer is by far the most difficult. It's tougher to cover soccer in Canada than the NHL, because requests, questions are often met with roadblocks or indifference. And then we wonder why mainstream media walks away.

- And I know so many people who DID love soccer, and won't go near games, now — other than their kids' games or volunteering in the community ranks. No sport in Canada chews people up like soccer does. So many people fighting over a tiny pie. It's crazy.

Sounds like a guy who really needs therapy.

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

10 hours ago, red card said:

Read his twitter timeline. Largely negative on CPL and domestic soccer overall including the MLS...

- #CanPL has failed, terribly, to move the needle. There's less interest in MLS than there was even five years ago....

Would agree that comment is a bit over the top when Halifax is such a success story and MLS was clearly only a couple of DP signings away from recreating the Giovinco era again but I still think you are going a bit overboard with the criticism of the guy.

Terry Jones of the Edmonton Sun would be an example of an old school CFL, hockey & baseball as the only sports to ever be talked up soccer hater who deserves a bit of flak when he goes out of his way to highlight the negative and write the sport's obituary as a spectator event in that city, but from what I understand Steven Sandor is from a recent Hungarian immigrant background and very much a soccer fan who doesn't have that sort of axe to grind.

My impression is that he drank the kool-aid a bit too much on some of the more over-exhuberant rhetoric on what was going to happen with CanPL and has now soured on the whole thing when it fell flat in an Edmonton context even compared to the NASL era of FCE but most of what he is saying is reasonable and constructive in that context and not motivated by a visceral level dislike of our sport and its culture.

Edited August 4, 2022 by Ozzie_the_parrot

[shermanator]

I think the bulk of Sandor’s frustrations come from the league’s decision to eliminate regional based reporting on CPL clubs during the pandemic, moving to a centralized reporting structure out of Toronto. He was a casualty of that decision, and I think it was the last straw after covering the game for decades. I know the person in Calgary who was affected by that decision, and while they are unhappy with it, they also haven’t gone and run their mouths on social media crapping all over the league; they have simply pivoted to focus on other local soccer.

My frustration with Sandor’s comments stems from him projecting FC Edmonton’s failures as the league’s failures. I think his assessments are bang on for the Edmonton market; it has failed to succeed and it is at the point where people in Edmonton have simply given up and moved on. But this does not mean that CPL has not made massive inroads in other markets. All this is doing is exposing how poor an owner the Fath’s really were. But because he worked with Fath for 9 years, he won't see that.

The CPL didn’t market FC Edmonton heavily and then bring them to a stadium with gridiron lines and yellow end zones. The CPL didn’t fail to build stands at Clarke for 18 months because they tried to skirt the permitting process with the City of Edmonton. The CPL didn’t hire Colin Miller. The CPL didn’t create their own production company while delivering an SD broadcast on regional TV. The CPL didn’t burn all bridges with the Edmonton youth soccer community. The CPL didn’t make zero adjustments to the game day experience when relaunching in CPL. That’s all on the Fath’s.

The Fath’s are why FC Edmonton have failed, and Edmonton is lucky the other CPL ownership groups are willing to lose even more money to try and rescue FC Edmonton. I think the CPL is actually putting in good effort to rebuild that fan base and re-connect with youth clubs in Edmonton. But CPL cost him the opportunity to get paid to cover soccer so fuck them I guess….

What Sandor needs to do is visit other cities and see what the game day experience is like with an ownership group that has sunken money into the product. All he has to do is go to a game in Calgary, one where he is not paid to do so, to see the difference for himself. If he does, he will see that the product on the pitch and in the stands is thriving and growing. He’d see the same in Langford as well, and Halifax, and Ottawa, and Hamilton, and maybe even Winnipeg (although for me Valour just remind me of NASL era FC Edmoton). He won’t put that effort in, but he should.

It’s funny, during a game in Calgary in 2019 we chirped him a bit from the stands and he raved about the interaction on social media for years. Maybe he just needs to feel a little love for the game again. Like many who have been involved with the professional game during the countless years it has failed, I think Sandor just needs a shift in mindset. It doesn't have to fail, but it will if you want it to. And I think some people are so accustomed to seeing it fail that they won't accept anything else.

Edited August 4, 2022 by shermanator

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

 

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

 

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

 

 

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

 

[yothat2]

On 8/10/2022 at 3:40 AM, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

 

Can see him get called up to the Lebanon national team.