Cover Photo Credit: Rob Kinnan-NCFC

North Carolina FC at FC Edmonton — 9:00 PM EST Friday July 7, 2017

NCFC finally put everything together on Tuesday to stop their month-long losing streak to beat league leaders Miami FC 1-0. Billy “Club Billy/Chilly” Schuler got on the end of a Jose Carranza cross in the 65th minute of the game to give Miami their first loss in about three months. Apparently in NASL you can only win or lose games in streaks.

Either way, it was great to see NCFC bounce back with a win at home, on the Fourth of July. When I first saw the lineup, I was very skeptical of the right side but the young guns of Carranza and Brad Ruhaak played a solid match. Maybe Colin Clarke read my advice column last week and decided to start Schuler and play Marcelin as a defensive midfielder? Or maybe it was a painfully obvious decision that needed to be made and I was just pointing that out.

On the subject of Schuler, it looks like he might be carrying an injury heading into the match against Edmonton. If that’s the case, then this is the perfect opportunity for Matt Fondy to get back into a rhythm. The Eddies have let in 19 goals this season (same as NCFC), but on the end they have only scored 9 – most of which were scored in that 4-2 win of NYC, while NCFC has doubled that with 18 (MATH). So I think Fondy and the rest of the NCFC attack should be ready to pounce on any chance they get.

I also hope that Carranza gets another start with Colin Clarke not rotating any of the players who beat Miami. Unless Steven Miller is healthy. Excuse me, Raleigh City Sports June 2017 Player of the Month Steven Miller. With Miller back, I think Carranza has more freedom to cut inside like he seemed to do most of the first half of the Miami game.

Besides that 4-2 win against NYC on June 7, FC Edmonton has probably had a similarly terrible month. They have been outscored 9-4 by their opponents in their past six games, so things haven’t been looking good for the Eddie attack.

Side note, “Eddie Attack” is my new band name and I will be very upset if anyone else takes it from me. The band would dress up in different outfits that resemble Eddie Murphy’s career, so for instance one person could wear the leather jumpsuit he wears in Raw, while someone else could just rock something out of Bowfinger. Just to cover my basis, I googled “eddie attack” to make sure I wasn’t stepping on anybody’s toes and this was the first thing that popped up:

Woof.

Predicted Outcome: 3-0 NCFC.

I also want to expand on something Mike brought up in this week’s podcast. I rarely get to make it to NCFC games because I’m in Texas, so I watch every single game on ESPN 3 or the WRAL app. I have to give a huge shoutout to my man Dean Linke, the voice of NCFC. There are a lot of bozos that call NASL games and soccer in general (looking at you, Fox Sports), but Linke is very good at what he does. NCFC fans are pretty lucky to have someone competent and insightful on the call when they can’t be at WakeMed.

Finally, congrats to Austin da Luz/Playing for Pride on breaking the $10,000 donation mark. Incredible.

Song of the Week

Till next week.

You can find JP on Twitter at @jp_rcs.