They’ve been here for years.

Sure, I understand the “rebirth” sentiment from the marketing angle, but make no mistake, FC Edmonton never really left.

I can’t recall if it was Ball or Fath who said it in their speech during the unveiling, but in Edmonton, the fans lead and the team follows, and not the other way around.

The boys at YEG4CPL were crucial to this coming through, and I don’t know what exactly happened last minute, and I was a little bit too far away from it personally to be privy to all the details, but there was never really any doubt in my mind that this would happen. It was more a question of when, than how.

And I personally want to see this trend continue. The fans lead and the team follows. So I guess the question we really have to ask now, is what, as fans, do we want, exactly.

I’ve got a few thoughts myself, but I hope anyone reading this shares some of their thoughts and we can have a little discussion:

1) Local, local, local. Firstly the city, then the province, then the country. Whether it be players, coaches or sponsors. We support our own first, and if, after the local has got a shot, and hasn’t cut it, only then do we look elsewhere. If a coach comes up through the academy, the head coach job should always be his (or her) job to lose. The same should always be true for academy players, obviously.

2) Embrace being different. In terms of the fan experience, try new things. I’m not even kidding when I say, how cool would it be to have a massive 20 ft drum at one end of the stadium and drumsticks attached that passersby could bang in unison. It’s never too early to start brainstorming our list of demands 😉

3) Ignore the haters. Don’t even engage – we’re above that shit. It starts with us, the fans. There are plenty of people asking the question of whether soccer can survive in this city. Pay them less mind than the whacky left and right wing extremists on twitter. Are there as many season ticket deposits as Vegas had for their NHL team? No, of course there aren’t. The NHL is an established league it has vastly more credibility than our CPL(and that’s okay!). This comparison simply isn’t apples to apples. As of today, we are the original.. erhm.. five. And I guarantee when the NHL was founded, the fans weren’t concerned about being compared to other league (partially because there weren’t really many around at the time, to be fair). We control the narrative – don’t let your feathers get ruffled by a false equivalence. First they laugh at you, and, well, you know the rest.

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Guillermo Del Quarto Guillermo finds it hard to write about himself in the third person.

Guillermo tries not to take himself seriously but to provide compelling content and engage in supporter culture as much as is possible from his remote location of Watson Lake, Yukon. He works as a Laboratory and X-ray technician and wants to do his part to help the CPL succeed, even if he may be critical of it at times. He covers FC Edmonton.

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