As the year wears on, FC Edmonton’s players might want to start making things easy on themselves.

But if they did that, then how are their matches going to end with such hear-stopping can’t-be-missed, ‘Did-you-just-see-that’ drama?

The Eddies stunned Ottawa Fury FC in the nation’s capital on Wednesday night, scoring three times after the 82nd minute to win 3-1 in the first leg of the Amway Canadian Championship preliminary round.

“It’s an exciting team, isn’t it?” Eddies manager Colin Miller said.

For the second time in half a week, FCE rallied from a late deficit with a scoring outburst fuelled by their substitutes. Daryl Fordyce came on to score the equalizer in the 83rd minute, while Lance Laing was unstoppable after entering the game in the 59th minute, earning a penalty kick that was stopped by Fury goalkeeper Romuald Peiser, before scoring the winning goal in the 88tth and setting up Tomi Ameobi’s stoppage-time insurance marker.

“That substitution plan definitely worked out,” Miller said, of starting Johann Smith before lifting him in favour of the Eddies’ top scorer in 2014. “It wasn’t as if Lance had been playing poorly, it was more to give him a bit of a rest so that when he did come on he would have that impact, and goodness me, did he ever.”

With the victory FC Edmonton is poised to move on to the Amway semi-finals for a pair of matches against the Vancouver Whitecaps, who are currently sitting atop the MLS standings. Ottawa and the Eddies meet in the second leg on April 29 at Clarke Stadium.

The match recalled the Eddies 3-2 triumph over Fort Lauderdale at Clarke Stadium in NASL spring season play on Sunday, when the Eddies turned a one-goal deficit around in five minutes, with Sainey Nyassi scoring in the 75th and substitute Ameobi following up in the 80th.

“There’s one team about a team that has been able to come back the way we have, and that is the character within the group,” Miller said. “We now know that we have that character, we’ve always had that character, so that’s great.”

For the second time in four matches, FCE gave up a goal in the opening minute, with Ottawa’s Oliver Mintael scoring on Matt VanOekel after a throw-in was left unmarked, and was lucky to be trailing only 1-0 at halftime after a lacklustre opening half in which they managed nary a shot on target, before registering five in the second half.

“I said to the guys after the game, we just have to be tighter defensively ... I have to keep hammering this home about the defensive side of the game because I don’t want to the games to be 5-4,” continued Miller.

“The fans do, but I would certainly prefer 5-0 for us rather than 5-4, so we just have to continue to work on starting quick, starting out of the box as if we’re on fire, and see what that brings us, because if we can do that and play the way we did in the second half for 90 minutes, then the team could take a bit of stopping.”

The Fury must score a minimum three times next Wednesday while winning by at least two goals in order to advance out of the preliminary round, which is decided on aggregate with the away goals rule. Any other outcome and the Eddies are off to Vancouver.

“We’ll start Wednesday and go to win the game, again, at home, so I can assure you, there is absolutely no complacency,” Miller said. “We will enjoy tonight, enjoy the game, enjoy the result, but then it’s back to work on Friday for the guys.”