Indy Eleven vs Miami FC - 13.25

Summary

- Opponent: Miami FC
- Location: Carroll Stadium
- Attendance: 7,878
- Final Score: 2-0 L

- Starting XI: Dick, Mitrano, Craig, Kibunguchy, Hafferty, Mesanvi, O'Brien, J., Quinn (C), Blake, Henry-Scott, Sing

- Substitution: Rasheed 45' (Sing); Barry 63' (Craig); Kizza 75' (O'Brien)

- Unused: Charles-Cook, Rendon (scratched during warmups), Sharp (scratched during warmups)

- Scoring Summary:
MIA - da Costa17' (free kick)
MIA - Tunbridge 44' (unassisted)

- Bookings:

MIA - Milesi 10' (Yellow)
IND - Quinn 16' (Yellow)
MIA - Ndiaye 20' (Yellow)
MIA - Knutson 55' (Yellow)
MIA - Milanes 61' (Yellow)
IND - Hafferty 90'+2' (Yellow)

- Referee: Carlos Rodriguez

- Adage goals: One
- Points Lost from Winning Position (Year To Date): 10

Thoughts and Opinions

With just a handful of games remaining in the 2016 season, it has reached a point where it looks like the final playoff spots will come down to Louisville, Indy, Rhode Island, and Miami. While not mathematically eliminated yet, Birmingham, Loudoun, and Brooklyn have a steep hill to climb to claw their way into contention. As if the USL Championship schedulers knew what they were doing, Indy play the other three teams in the next couple of weeks, tonight against Miami and Wednesday in Rhode Island. What happens in the next two weeks will determine who, and at what position, the four teams find themselves when the final ball is kicked in the regular season. Indy, with their loss tonight, find themselves absolutely needing to get a result against Rhode Island and Loudoun. With mounting late season injuries, Indy's grasp of a playoff spot took a hard hit tonight in a proverbial 6-point game with Miami in a 2-nil loss.

Photo: Don Thompson Photography

Indy came into the game without Omar who is out on international duty. Cam Lindley looks to be out for at least a couple of weeks as a result of his leg injury on Sunday against Oakland and didn't train all week. Herbert was also out with an on-going leg injury that doesn't have him at full strength. Craig has been nursing an injury. Josh O'Brien has also been nursing an injury. Coach McAuley didn't even have 18 players available on the game day roster with just 17 guys suiting, and then during warmups, Rendon AND Sharp were late scratches, forcing the gaffer to bring out the baling wire and duct tape to pull together a starting lineup minutes before gametime. With the importance of the next two games, rotation likely wasn't going to come into play, but the "next man up" and "play who you got" mentality had to come through tonight. The good news if you're grasping for something is that the temperature of tonight's game was 20 to 30-degrees cooler than it has been the past week so at least the guys weren't also dealing with that external factor too. I was asked if I had ever seen something like this happen with Indy. Not only have I never seen it with Indy, I don't know that I've ever been part of a game with two players for the same time getting injuries during warmups. 

To start the game, the backline looked relatively consistent, give or take, but Lindley's injury pushed O'Brien into the holding mid position with Quinn. Mesanvi, normally up top, played on the right side of the midfield. He's never struck me as having great defensive chops, but limitations lead to creativity. Indy's player limitations led to McAuley having to get creative with his use of the players. Sing and Henry-Scott were in their normal positions, but with what looked like significantly more minutes than they've seen all season. Henry-Scott finished the game, Sing did not.

The first twenty minutes had moments for Indy, but possession was so drastically skewed (80 to 20%) that I know that even with McAuley and Indy's style of play this season, that's not sustainable. A series of passes through the center of the field found Quinn chasing the play and ending up fouling and getting carded in the process. The ensuing free kick from outside the 18-yard box was placed perfectly over the wall and into the upper 90 by da Costa to get the visitors on the board early.

As an Indy fan, given the circumstances, you can't argue with the fight the team showed in the first half, but they couldn't find an equalizer and the teams went into the locker room with a 2-nil lead for the visitors thanks to a late goal as Tunbridge absolutely destroyed the Indy defense. Tunbridge took the ball from half field and nobody stopped him. When he took his shot, uncontested, from inside the box, there wasn't much that Dick could do to stop it. With their game plan thrown out of the window in the pregame, and with players that haven't played a lot of minutes together, Indy looked like they were grasping for anything to give them a spark, but they looked like a different team tonight than in the past. It's amazing, and was made evident, just how much Rendon and Lindley affect the game, and their absence forced everybody to play differently.

After the half, McAuley made an immediate change to get Mesanvi out of the midfield, which meant that Sing's evening went from late starter to first substitute after just 45-minutes of action. Up two goals against a team that has to be expeditious in their attacks because they don't have the players available to make many substitutions, Miami looked like world beaters. The visitors held the ball in locations where Indy couldn't be dangerous, and continued to make Indy chase the ball. 

As the game wound down, that began to change as Miami took a deeper, prevent role with Indy throwing everything forward that they could. The final stats make the game look better than it was, but for anybody that has watched Indy this season, this was a different team and a different performance. The only thing that was consistent was the fight and grit from the players. As a fan, if I see my team doing that, I appreciate it even if the result isn't there. 

Given the injury bug and the circumstances of having to adjust minutes before the start of the game, it's not surprising that Indy wasn't able to overcome the obstacles and lost. It does make the game on Wednesday much more important. Without knowing the extent of Rendon's and Sharp's injuries, it's difficult to say what the team will look like in Rhode Island, but a positive result, win or draw, is absolutely necessary. Indy lost the tiebreaker with Miami with tonight's loss, but can still get the tiebreaker with Rhode Island if they can find a way to get points from the game. It might be a deciding factor in who gets a playoff game and who finishes their season without a postseason game. 

 

Game Beckons Game Ball

It's not easy to find a player that deserves to get the GBGB in a loss like this. I kept trying to think of a rationale for any specific player and I could make an argument for Blake but only because of his effort. I could argue O'Brien because of his ability to play a different spot than he's played all season. It's just not enough. I wanted to reward somebody, but I just don't think anybody did enough in a losing result.

Don Thompson Photography