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Plucky Eddies hold Pacific FC to scoreless CPL draw

Surprising FC Edmonton held league-leading Pacific FC to a scoreless Canadian Premier League draw Wednesday night at Clarke Stadium in the Alberta capital.
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Pacific FC striker Alejandro Diaz tries to fend off FC Edmonton ­midfielder Wesley Thomas Lanca Timoteo during first-half action at Clarke Stadium in Edmonton on Wednesday. TRISHA LEES, PACIFIC FC

Surprising FC Edmonton held league-leading Pacific FC to a scoreless Canadian Premier League draw Wednesday night at Clarke Stadium in the Alberta capital.

“We just went toe-to-toe with the defending champions and that’s a massive achievement, considering where we came from,” said Eddies head coach Alan Koch.

“It is a moral result. It is not a level field. They have some of the best players in the league. You could feel the vibe among our supporters, who were saying thank-you to us as we left the field and we said thank-you back.”

PFC’s three-game winning streak to start the season became a four-game unbeaten skein. FC Edmonton has an all-things-considered reasonable three draws and a loss after four games. The Eddies have been taken over by the CPL after the former owners fell into financial distress operating the club. The CPL is looking for new ownership. Until then, in order not to lose a franchise, the Eddies are mostly stocked by players on loan from the other seven CPL clubs, including Haiti U-20 national-team midfielder Bicou Bissainthe from PFC, and two players from Toronto FC of Major League Soccer.

“I thought we played very well but didn’t take our chances,” said PFC head coach James Merriman, whose club held a commanding 71 per cent to 29 per cent advantage in ball possession.

“It wasn’t our day up top. We need to be more ruthless in those areas. We played some of our best football and created a lot of chances. Had we taken them, it would have been a different game. But we didn’t. The Edmonton defence played well and made it difficult. The Eddies were very compact with everybody behind the ball.”

Central-defender Amer Didic, outstanding for Pacific FC in the early going after three seasons with the Eddies, returned to his hometown. Many pundits had the six-foot-four Canada-capped former Sporting Kansas City MLS-prospect Didic ranked as the second-best central defender in the CPL last season behind Lukas MacNaughton of PFC, who in the off-season moved up to MLS with Toronto FC. The ­Tridents quickly moved to fill that gap by signing Didic away from FC Edmonton.

“I enjoyed my three years with the Eddies … I trained here at Clarke every day … and now coming here in front of friends and family. There were nerves but they were good nerves,” said the 27-year-old, who was born in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and went to Edmonton at a young age following the Bosnian War.

“Growing up in Edmonton, it’s tough to see what the club has gone through, and I am personally happy it is still going.”

But some things don’t change.

“The Eddies are a tough team to break down, especially here at Clarke, which is a tough place to play. We had some quality chances to score tonight but it didn’t happen for us.”

Teen striker Kamron Habibullah, on loan to PFC from the Vancouver Whitecaps of MLS, made his first start for the defending-CPL champion Tridents in his return from the recent Team Canada acclimatization camp in Costa Rica, in preparation for the CONCACAF U-20 championship next month in Honduras.

“It was nice to get Kamron back in the mix and I thought he played very well in his first start,” said Merriman.

Among the few returnees for FC Edmonton is former Germany U-19 striker and Dortmund prospect Tobias Warschewski. So it wasn’t all about defence for the Eddies and they had some scoring chances to make Tridents goalkeeper Callum Irving earn his clean sheet.

PFC continues its three-game road trip on Sunday with a visit to Calgary to face Cavalry FC. Then it’s on to the nation’s capital to face Atletico Ottawa on May 7.

cdheensaw@timescolonist.com