Ottawa Fury through to Championship semi finals

Ottawa Fury FC are through to the Amway Canadian Championship semi finals for the first time. The capital city’s third-year club won 3-2 in their two-match, preliminary series against FC Edmonton, booking their spot in a two-match series with last year’s national champions Vancouver Whitecaps FC.

The 2016 Amway Canadian Championship semi finals start Wednesday 1 June, with a live nation-wide broadcast on TSN. Ottawa Fury FC will host Vancouver Whitecaps FC in one series while Toronto FC will host Impact Montréal in the other series. The return legs will be played one week later on Wednesday 8 June.

For Ottawa Fury FC, last year’s Fall Season winners in the North American Soccer League, it will mark the first time they get to host a club from the higher division in Major League Soccer. In Whitecaps FC, Ottawa will face the 2015 Amway Canadian Championship winners who, as of 18 May, sit third in the 2016 MLS Western Conference standings.

In this year’s Amway Canadian Championship preliminary series, Ottawa Fury FC won 3:0 away on 11 May, then held the series after an 0:2 loss at home against the traveling Eddies on 18 May. Fernando Timbó, Carl Haworth, and Idan Vered were the Ottawa goal scorers in the first leg, while Dustin Corea and Adam Eckersley were the Edmonton goal scorers in the second leg.

“Edmonton were fantastic in the first half, absolutely magnificent and showed a real passion and desire and a real belief that they could get a victory here,” said Fury coach Paul Dalglish of the second leg in Ottawa. “But I thought second half we came out and we matched them and we just about deserved it in the end.”

The Amway Canadian Championship is Canada Soccer’s professional competition featuring clubs from Vancouver, Edmonton, Toronto, Ottawa, and Montréal. The national champion lifts the Voyageurs Cup and wins Canada’s lone spot in CONCACAF Champions League on the road to the FIFA Club World Cup.