By MORRIS DALLA COSTA, FREE PRESS SPORTS COLUMNIST

London City will finally be able to give out its promotional foam fingers tonight when it holds its Canadian Soccer League home opener.

City was supposed to play last week but a downpour made certain portions of Cove Road field unplayable.

The fickle finger of fate hasn't been kind to City but at least the weather looks to have turned for tonight. Now City hopes its luck on the field goes the same direction.

City will take on Portugal FC at 8:38 p.m.

City lost its road opener this year 2-1 to Italia Shooters two weeks ago and hasn't played since.

The team is looking to win its first game in 31 matches. London's last win was Aug. 10, 2007, against Portuguese Supra 1-0 at Cove Road Field.

"That's in the past. We're ready to move on," player-coach Andrew Loague said.

"We were disappointed we couldn't play (last week)," Loague said. "But we had a good week of practice. We had to go over a lot of defensive stuff we missed in our first game."

Loague is co-coach of a remade roster. City will rely on him to do a lot of scoring. Loague doesn't feel coaching and playing is a burden.

"You really do see what's going on on the field when you are playing," Loague said. "I did the same thing at Portuguese for five years. If I hadn't done it before, there would be stuff out there that I didn't see. But being experienced and having done it, there is stuff I catch out there."

Every year begins with great hope for City. Loague believes this is a much stronger team than in past years and the more they are together, the better they'll get.

"Basically, this will be our second game playing together and really having a lineup," Loague said. "All the other teams, they have an exhibition schedule because they have all played together four or five games. The teams that play in Toronto can play each other. But it's hard for us to travel there to play."

Loague said City had one exhibition game and that was against Marconi.

"It's going to be a learning curve and getting the guys to play together," Loague said. "We have the bodies. We have the talent. We just have to start putting it together."

Getting that first win would be a big boost in confidence. But Loague believes there are lots of wins out there for City.

"It would be a weight off our shoulders," he said. "We're really, really looking forward to this year.

"I'm not saying we're going to win 12, 13 games but realistically we have a good shot of making the playoffs this year."