Indy Eleven vs Greenville Triumph - 2025 Jagermeister Cup Quarterfinal

Summary

- Opponent: Greenville Triumph SC
- Location: Carroll Stadium
- Attendance: 4,043
- Final Score: 1-1 D (6-5 Greenville in Penalty Shootout)

- Starting XI: Sulte, O'feimu, Hogan, Musa, Rendon, Quinn (C), Lindley, Murphy, Blake, Williams, R., Foster

- Substitution: Kizza 45' (Blake); Bryneus 71' (Murphy); Amoh 72' (Williams, R.); O'Brien, J. 85' (Lindley); Soumaoro 85' (Rendon)

- Unused: Charles-Cook, Collier

Scoring Summary:
IND - Williams, R. 55' (assist Rendon)
GVL - Own Goal 90' (Quinn)

Penalty Kicks:
GVL - Evans (Goal) 1-X
IND - Foster (Goal) 1-1
GVL - Fricke (Goal) 2-1
IND - Amoh (Goal) 2-2
GVL - Herrera (Goal) 3-2
IND - Hogan (Goal) 3-3
GVL - Zakowski (Goal) 4-3
IND - Ofeimu (Goal) 4-4
GVL - Patti (Goal) 5-4
IND - Quinn (Goal) 5-5
GVL - Soto (Goal) 6-5
IND - Bryneus (FAIL) 6-5

- Bookings:

IND - Blake 12' (Yellow)
GVL - Evans 21' (Yellow)
IND - Foster 68' (Yellow)
IND - Ofeimu 76' (Yellow)

- Referee: Elvis Osmanovic

- Adage goals: One. One massive adage goal.

Thoughts and Opinions

I don't have an official stat to back this up, but it feels like soccer in this country is littered with examples of teams who have won the Supporters' Shield (or their league's version of it) only to finish the season without any Cup or Playoff hardware. While Indy have absolutely zero chance of having the best record in the league, and dropped out of the U.S. Open Cup awhile ago, the Jagermeiser Cup stood as a chance for the team to play for some hardware. Standing in their way in tonight's quarterfinal match was Greenville Triumph, the surprise team from Group 6 that included USL Championship sides Charleston Battery and Tampa Bay Rowdies. Greenville continue to sit as the lone League One side in the competition after a late goal pushed the teams back to level and then to the Penalty Shootout, which the visiting side won 6-5 to advance in the tournament.

As I said last week, Indy holding a possession advantage over any team in league play has been a rarity. To see a 60/40% disadvantage to a League One team is still a bit unexpected. In the first half, Indy could not hold onto the ball in any way and Greenville spent a large portion of the first half in Indy's defensive half of the field. Indy looked overmatched until around the 30th minute when they finally looked like they might get a foothold on the game. Not a strong foothold, but they did manage to get themselves into some dangerous locations. The plethora of whistles added another level of ragged play from both teams. Only 1 shot on target in the first half combined between the two teams and the half mercifully came to an end in a 0-0 draw. There were 25 fouls called, so there's that. 

Coach McAuley made no qualms about his feelings of the first half. He immediately subbed out Blake for Kizza after the halftime break. I wouldn't have wanted to be a player in the locker room, because I heard McAuley say that in his 1 and 2/3 seasons in charge, the first half was the worst effort he's seen from any team he's selected. Coach didn't say it, but from my perspective, only Lindley seemed to play with any kind of urgency required in a quarterfinal of a Cup game, and even he looked out of sync at times. I don't know if the team was overlooking their League One opponent, but it was definitely not good enough.

Tactically, McAuley had the team press the Greenville defense more and higher up the field, forcing the defenders to make quicker decisions than they had the entire first half. The press flustered the Greenville defense and the became tilted in Indy's favor. In the 55th minute, Foster, who had moved into the position that was vacated with Blake's substitution, turned and drove at the GVL defense. Foster laid the ball off to Rendon, who one-timed a cross that Williams one-timed into the goal. The goal was met with a simultaneous roar of applause and a sigh of relief from the Indy fans. 

Then Indy did what Indy has done all season. They couldn't hold onto a lead as a 90th minute Own Goal pulled the game level. In this competition, there are no Extra Time minutes, so the game went straight to a Penalty Shootout. The first five players for both teams scored. Soto then scored for Greenville while Bryneus had his shot saved by Rankenburg. In the span of about 15-20 minutes of time, Indy went from a spot in a semifinal game of a Cup tournament in back-to-back years to watching a League One side celebrate their victory in front of the goal immediately in front of the Brickyard Battalion.

Indy had the most points of any team in the Group stage and never actually trailed in the competition, including tonight, but find themselves wondering what might have been as they headed home. They were facing the lone remaining League One team. They were playing at Carroll Stadium after Greenville, who was originally scheduled to host tonight's game, couldn't acquire either of the two locations where they play. They were given two gifts before the game ever started. Somehow, they managed to go into the halftime locker room at 0-0 despite playing one of the worst halves of soccer they've ever played. They were ahead until the 90th minute when an Own Goal saw it all unravel. The penalty shootout occurred in front of the BYB. You almost have to try on purpose to not come out on top.

I honestly can't look at the schedule for the rest of the season and point to a game that I think should be an Indy win. Could they? Sure. Will they? Not in their current run of form with the mistakes that keep happening. They'll get their first chance to try and turn things around with a game this coming Saturday at home against Miami FC. 

The Game Beckons Game Ball

Lindley and it's not even close. Sure, Foster made the run, Rendon made the cross, and Williams scored the goal, but what I wrote earlier during halftime I stand by it postgame. For moments of the game, Lindley was the only one who showed any sense of urgency and effort. I don't know what kept him out of Coach McAuley's lineup for so long at the start of the season, but I would take 11 Lindleys every day of the week and twice on game day. 

There was a moment when an Indy counterattack stifled and the ball found its way to Lindley. He picked up his head, ready to start the second wave of the counter before Greenville could get reset defensively. Up field was Foster, 15 yards offside. Walking. He had a moment where he could have done a u-pattern to get back on side and start back up field before the defense was at his speed because Lindley was ready to get it to him. Instead, as he was lollygagging back on side (tonight's first but not last reference to the movie Bull Durham), Lindley was forced to recycle the ball around the defense and midfield. Greenville regrouped and everything had to start over again. 

Unfiltered Thoughts

Tonight was my 200th official game in attendance. There are some preseason games and an NPSL game that don't count that would get the number a bit higher, but my official number is 200. Between the men's team and the women's team, the club has played 442 games. That includes league games, playoff games, Cup games, and a few friendlies against Mexican teams and Detroit (which technically aren't "official" games, but if you sat in that heat for the game against Pachuca, it should count). I have written an article for every single one of those games, plus numerous articles about the stadium, and two different series (Top 5 Moments and The Soccer Life) that spotlighted players and fans. As such, this article will be my 605th article on this site. I have written millions of words about soccer and mostly about the Indy Eleven. 605 articles divided by 12 seasons (which isn't even complete yet) equals 50 articles a year, or roughly 1 article per week. Given that I more or less take most of Nov, Dec, Jan, and Feb off, that's a lot of dual article weeks. There was a stretch this year in June during the W League season where I attended 4 games and wrote 6 articles in a 9 day span (Friday to following Saturday). This isn't my full-time job.

I'm fucking tired.

If you haven't seen the movie Bull Durham, I'm about to spoil the ending for you, because you should have already seen Bull Durham by now. At the end, Crash turns up on Annie's porch and she asks him "what happened?" He responds with, "I quit. I hit my dinger and I hung 'em up. ... but now I'm tired and I don't want to think about baseball and I don't want to think about quantum physics and I don't want to think about nothin'. I just wanna be."

I have been eyeing this 200th game milestone for awhile now as maybe my version of a "dinger." I have toyed with it for seasons, but I might be getting closer to stopping writing full-time on this site. I don't get paid for this site in any way. There are no ads. No paid subscriptions. I get press credentials, but I still buy season tickets; have since the first season. This was always intended to be a hobby. And you're hobby is supposed to be more enjoyable than what this is bringing to me right now.

I have listened to the team talk about a stadium since before they ever kicked a ball. I drove by the site of what was supposed to be Eleven Park before tonight's game and I saw an excavation crew working the construction site south of "Eleven Park," but the only visual activity that's happened on Ersal's site is that the massive piles of dirt have been leveled. I have listened to the team say they want to be a premier team in the country, not just this league, and yet stadiums are going up for teams around the country that have been around less time than Indy. Rhode Island. Colorado Springs. Lexington. You can keep going. Not to mention Detroit's building a stadium. Sacramento is building one. Pittsburgh is expanding theirs to 15,000 seats, presumably so that they will be able to play in the USL Division One (or whatever they end up calling it...I assume USL Premier League). All while Indy continues to play in the "Greatest Dive Bar in American Soccer" with absolutely zero public word on a status of a stadium after the Mayor of Indianapolis killed Eleven Park.

I watch the team fail year after year. The team has never made the playoffs in three consecutive seasons, and I honestly don't see them making the playoffs this year.

I watch good men, good managers, leave every couple of years.

I watched the team lose to a lower league team at home in a penalty shootout after conceding in the 90th minute and was unfazed. I almost expected it.

It just feels like I'm not doing this for the fun of it anymore, and even in the good moments, it has become more of a job than I intended or wanted. I'm definitely finishing out the season, because that was what I agreed to do when I requested season credentials, but this off-season is going to get a hard look from me on what next season looks like.

Because I'm fucking tired.