Welcome to the Starting XI, The Athletic’s weekly series that examines some of the current soccer news around MLS, CPL as well as the men’s and women’s national teams.



1. Fans attentively following the growth of the Canadian Premier League got a surprise last Friday when the league announced that a conditional club had been granted to Vancouver Island. It had been rumoured that a club in British Columbia would instead be based in Langley, B.C. Details were thin and the announcement wasn’t in the same vein as previous announcements, which were generally followed by a launch party of some sort.



The Athletic can now shed some light on what the lone B.C.-based club will look like.



The club will play out of Westhills Stadium in Langford, a municipality of Victoria, B.C. The club’s conditional status is based on the team securing additional seating in the 1,718-capacity stadium — getting it to a required 6,500...