Indy Eleven vs Charleston Battery - 12.05

Summary

- Opponent: Charleston Battery
- Location: Carroll Stadium
- Attendance: -
- Final Score: 3-1 L

- Starting XI: Sulte, Musa, Hogan, White, Stanley, Quinn (C), Murphy, Rendon, Blake, Kizza, Foster

- Substitution: Ofeimu 60' (Hogan); Collier 60' (Rendon); McRobb 60' (Stanley); Amoh 69' (Kizza); Lindley 81' (Foster)

- Unused: Charles-Cook, Hunsucker, McCoy, O'Brien, J.

Scoring Summary:
CHS - Myers 4' (assist Torres)
CHS - Myers 8' (assist Jennings)
CHS - Rodriguez 49' (assist Malloy)
IND - Amoh 90'+4' (assist Musa)

- Bookings:

IND - Blake 28' (Yellow)
IND - Rendon 43' (Yellow)
IND - White 68' (Yellow)
CHS - Zamudio 90'+4' (Yellow)

- Referee: Natalie Simon

- Adage goals: Most definitely!

Thoughts and Opinions

Based solely on the records, Indy Eleven and the Charleston Battery has been a fairly even affair, with Indy holding a 4W-2D-5L record against the opponent from South Carolina. The problem from an Indy Eleven perspective is that the past three games have been an absolute nightmare for the Boys in Blue, losing all three by a combined 14-2 score. Charleston dominated the 2023 playoff game to the tune of 5-nil, followed that up with a 4-2 win in Indy, and most recently beat Indy in August of last year, again by a staggering 5-nil scoreline. Coach McAuley wants to make The Mike a fortress, but getting a win against Charleston has been a difficult proposition. By the time Charleston scored their second goal in just the 8th minute, getting a win seemed an impossibility. Getting a win this season against a team not named Miami FC has proven to be a much larger challenge than expected. Holding onto leads had been the issue coming into the game, so the team decided to mix it up and dig themselves a massive hole against one of the best teams in the conference/league. Narrator: "It didn't go well."

Photo Credit: Don Thompson Photography

Charleston came to town with one of 4 announced Indy Eleven signings that never played for the club, in Cal Jennings. There are a lot of #IndyForever players, but Cal is about as fringe of that group as possible. Cal was signed to Indy in December 2020, but was transferred to MLS's LAFC in March 2021, having never suited up for the Eleven (not even a preseason game). So I had little hesitation to hope he wouldn't do well tonight. Jennings had an assist by the 8th minute...

Indy's horrible start to the game forced them to play from behind far too early. Indy's best early chance came in the 16th minute, but Kizza's shot went straight to Zamudio. After the two early goals, Indy looked discombobulated across all the lines, but it was the poor defense that was most troubling in this game. Indy's defenders were in constant last-ditch defending mode. Charleston's front three players of Torres, Myers, and Jennings ran the Indy defenders all over the field. It didn't help that Indy's attack was doing almost nothing to help out their defenders. The midfielders and forwards couldn't string anything together, and as a result, play was constantly tilted in Charleston's favor. The defenders weren't helping themselves either, as their distribution wasn't any better than the midfielders. A repeat of last year's trend of Indy struggling against the top tier teams looked to be rearing its head again.

Indy and Charleston went into the halftime locker room 2-2. Unfortunately, that was 2 goals for Charleston and 2 yellow cards for Indy. In all honesty, Indy was lucky to be down just the two goals. There was a clear better team on the field in the first half, and it most definitely was not the team that was wearing their special black alternate third kit with the checkers. 

Second verse, same as the first. 

Full Time - Shots

Charleston came out of the locker room and put a third goal on the board in the 49th minute to put a "COMPLETE" stamp on the game. All that remained was the final 41 minutes of the half and the final score. After the goal, it looked like 3 Charleston goals was not going to be the end of their scoring, and there was no indication that Indy was going to undo their goose egg for the night. To their credit, Indy didn't roll over and let the game balloon any further. Based on the shots in the game, and the number of saves each goalkeeper made, Indy's loss wasn't for a lack of effort. By the end of the game, Indy had doubled Charleston in shots (16 to 8), and had a +2 shots on target advantage (6 to 4). Indy had gone into the half with a 0.16xG to Charleston's 0.71, but finished the game with 0.68 to 0.87, respectively. The issue was that by that stage of the game, Charleston was content to ride out their three-goal lead, slow the game down, and get out of town with the three points. In a flurry of activity at the end, Indy managed to score twice, one of which was called back for offside, and a second that Amoh blasted out of the reach of Zamudio, who promptly retrieved the ball from the net and blasted it out of the field of play over the Brickyard Battalion as he watched his clean sheet get erased late. His frustration was met with a yellow card from referee Natalie Simon, Charleston's only card of the night.

Indy now have just 5 points from 5 league games, with three of those games taking place at Carroll Stadium. Making The Mike a fortress isn't going very well this season, but getting another crack at setting the foundation for the fortress is going to have to wait to get started for a little bit longer. The next chance to get a home win will be in two weeks when Detroit City make the trip down from Michigan on Saturday May 3rd. Between now and that game, Indy will have their first foray into the Jagermeister Cup when they take on another Peter Wilt started team in Forward Madison. Coach McAuley has repeatedly stated that he wants the team to take Cup games (USOC or Jagermeister) seriously, with a desire to win a trophy. He reiterated that again tonight after the game. Since Indy won't be dealing with multiple games next week, I won't be surprised to see the normal starters starting that game. Hopefully, Indy's first game in the Jagermeister Cup doesn't take as long to get a win as this past Wednesday's game against Miami in the USOC.

The Game Beckons Game Ball

In a game where the team conceded early goals in each half, and the squad generally performed poorly enough that I had to use the term discombobulated to describe how they all played, it's always nice to see a guy come off the bench and make an impact. I could be talking about Lindley again after his stellar performance during the Open Cup game (he had 3 chances created in this game in just 9'+6' of action tonight), but I'm specifically talking about Amoh. He's been playing limited minutes, but as a forward, you just want to see the ball go in. With just 12 touches, he nearly scored twice, and did get the goal that pissed off Zamudio so much he reacted like a high school player rather than a professional. On a night where not a lot went well for Indy, Amoh getting a goal can only help the forward group.

Photos: Don Thompson Photography