There is still half a season left.

This concludes the list of positive things that came out of FC Edmonton’s match Sunday afternoon at Clarke Field.

In a game they needed to win to stay in the playoff chase and maintain the positive momentum they’d built over the last few weeks, the Eddies did neither in a 2-0 loss to the visiting Fort Lauderdale Strikers.

After going 2-0-1 with two shutouts in their previous three starts, nobody in a crowd of 3,110, or on the Edmonton bench, expected a lacklustre performance like this.

“Not for a million miles,” said head coach Colin Miller. “That’s probably the poorest the team has played for entire 90 minutes since I’ve arrived here, and it’s disappointing because we could have gotten into that fourth playoff spot.”

The Eddie were just two points back of a playoff spot when the match began and all they managed to do with the opportunity is let Fort Lauderdale pass them in the standings.

“We’ve made it more difficult for ourselves,” said Miller. “It’s not the end of the road, but the guys know that they’re far better than this. They’ll have to be far better than this moving forward.

“From front to back it was a very poor performance.”

It was only a coincidence that they were giving away free tubes of lip balm before the game, but on a day when the team sucked so badly, it seemed fitting.

“We knew it was a massive game and we were disappointed with the reaction,” said team captain Albert Watson. “There were no excuses about it, we weren’t good.

“They got the ball quicker, they moved the ball quicker, we gave them too much space… we were giving balls away. That’s not good enough from the team we have and we all know it.”

Edmonton’s offence let them down in this one, failing to generate much of anything with over 90 minutes worth of mis-spent energy.

“I don’t think it was until the second half that we actually had a shot on goal and even then it wasn’t much of a shot,” said Miller, adding the lack of punch is entirely uncharacteristic of what they’ve been doing this year.

“We’ve been pretty good at attacking. I don’t want to single anybody out. It was just a very very poor FC Edmonton performance.”

The Fort Lauderdale, a team stocked with South Americans, played an uptempo, offensively aggressive style that gave them a territorial advantage for most of the first half.

They made it 1-0 when Stefano Pinho scored low right corner on a penalty kick in the 29th minute and put it away for good when Pinho shook off Eddie Edward in front of the goal and made it 2-0 in the 82nd minute.

“Full credit to Fort Lauderdale,” said Miller. “They did what they had to do. They were better in possession than us, they showed more enthusiasm after flying from one end of the continent to the other. They had more life and more energy about them and that’s the disappointing thing for us.”

Everything about the loss was uncharacteristic of recent Edmonton performances, begging the obvious question of nerves or fear of success given how much was at stake.

“As a club we need to learn to get over that next stage,” said Miller. “We got to a position today where we could have got into a playoff spot and we’ve let ourselves down.

“We’re disappointed, devastated, gutted, all the things you could possibly say. But we have to regroup moving forward because as players there have been very few times that they’ve let us down like they did today.”

EDDIES grades

OVERALL: D

Defence C

Forwards F

Midfield D

Goaltending B

Effort B

Man of the match

Fort Lauderdale forward Stefano Pinho scored both goals in the win, making no mistake on a penalty kick and then sealing it with second half strike.

The why

Edmonton just seemed off in all facets of the game. Whether it was nerves or fear of success, they weren’t the same team that just went 2-0-1. The offence looked lost.

Big save

Edmonton didn’t have a lot of chances, but a point-blank header from Tomi Ameobi could have tied it not long after Fort Lauderdale went up 1-1, but keeper Josh Ford made a great diving save.

Keeper change

Goalkeeper Matt VanOekel was supposed to get the start for Edmonton until running into hip flexor trouble in pre-game warm-up. So the Eddies started Tyson Farago instead.

OUCH

Thiago de Freitas went up for a header and wound up getting dumped awkwardly on his back and neck midway through the first half. Scary and painful but he returned to the game moments later and seemed none the worse for wear.

Next up

Saturday 5:30 pm at Atlanta Silverbacks