The Ottawa Fury FC today announced the signing of American Aly Hassan, a 26-year old who most recently played for the Fort Lauderdale Strikers of the NASL.

As expected, the Fury signing that’s been teased for weeks is a forward. The signing is intended to bolster an offense that scored only 5 goals in their 10 matches of the NASL Spring Season (they also scored 2 goals in 2 matches of the Voyageurs Cup).

Hassan has bounced around the lower rungs of the American soccer pyramid over the span of his career, also playing for the Central Florida Kraze (now Orlando City SC U-23) of the PDL. He also had a loan spell with Bolivian 2nd division side Club Aurora. In 54 career club appearances, Hassan has scored 26 goals.

Despite the impressive scoring record, this is not a signing that will inspire casual soccer fans in the Ottawa area to suddenly rush to buy tickets. However, if Hassan proves a worthy goal scorer and helps propel the Fury to the upper echelons of the table, the stands will surely see a bump in activity.

The Hassan signing illustrates the difficulty to sign productive forwards for teams like the Ottawa Fury FC. Unless teams in the NASL are willing to break the bank like the New York Cosmos did in signing Marcos Senna and Raúl, they will have to develop their own goal poachers, and once they do, those players are sure to be scooped up by better clubs in better leagues.

Developing young players who go onto greener pastures isn’t sexy to the casual fan, but can become a profitable avenue for clubs like the Ottawa Fury FC’s of the world. Although to a much smaller degree, these teams can look to clubs like Lyon in France or Southampton in England for inspiration as talent factories that bring success to the club coupled with a revenue stream when the bigger clubs come knocking.

It’s clear that the pre-NASL Fury FC Academy was not set up to be a pipeline to an NASL-level club, evidenced by the fact that only a few players have come through to play for the first team since the club’s first match in the spring of 2014. However, one can hope it can become such an outfit under the professional guidance of technical director Philip Dos Santos. Until then, however, the Fury will have to rely on player signings such as this one.