When Peter Wilt said that reinforcements were coming, I didn't know that they would come in rapid succession. The Eleven announced Thursday that they would be adding another defender, a local product from Zionsville, Cory Miller. Cory played his college ball at Olivet Nazarene University and has played professionally for the Carolina Railhawks and the Los Angeles Blues, as well as a tryout with the Portland Timbers in 2011. I was able to find a few highlight videos of Miller online and he looks pretty good. Like all highlight reels, they show only good plays, but it's still enough for me to give a basic review.
I like his highlights. Beyond his obvious ability to use his 6'-2" height to get to headers, he tracks back, he holds his position well (see min 6:35 in the first video as my favorite moment of this), he has good foot skills (entirety of third video), and apparently attempts more bicycles as a defender than most forwards.
The parts that concern me are twofold: 1) a lot of long balls and 2) a lot of slide tackles. I don't know when we might see Miller play in a game, but I hope that the long balls were a function of his previous teams and that he doesn't continue that trend with the Eleven. Not with the midfield that the Eleven have available for him to use to move the ball forward. Somebody also needs to tell him that the NASL refs seem to be prone to calling tackles and a bunch of his in the videos were really close to the box or in the box. We've seen a lot of penalty kicks this season and I'm guessing Nicht is not in any mood to continue that trend.
It sounds like he's already been training with the team for the past few weeks, so hopefully they've started working out the kinks of incorporating a new player by the time he gets his first playing time. Will that be tonight? See you tonight at #TheMike to find out.
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