Indy Eleven vs Memphis 901 FC - 11.02

Summary

- Opponent: Memphis 901 FC
- Location: AutoZone Park
- Attendance: -
- Final Score: 2-1 W

- Starting XI: Oettl, O'Brien, J., Chapman-Page, Barbir, Stanley, Gibson (C), Blake, Lindley, Williams, Martinez, Guenzatti

- Substitution: Henderlong 63' (Martinez); King 72' (Chapman-Page); Collier 72' (Guenzatti); O'Brien, E. 90'+2' (Gibson)

- Unused: Sulte, Klein, Molina

- Scoring Summary:
IND -  26' Blake (penalty kick)
IND - Martinez 42' (assist Stanley)
MEM - Cissoko 90'+1' (unassisted)

- Bookings:

IND - Chapman-Page 8' (Yellow)
MEM - Jimenez 15', 45'+1' (Yellow, Yellow, RED)
MEM - Tulu 25' (Yellow)

IND - Barbir 35' (Yellow)
IND - Martinez 57' (Yellow)
IND - O'Brien, E. 90'+3' (Yellow)
MEM - Cissoko 90'+4' (Yellow)
MEM - Ward 90'+7' (RED)

- Referee: Sergii Demianchuk

- Adage goals: One

Thoughts and Opinions

Allow this to be my first, but probably not last, complaint about soccer on a baseball field. Yeah, yeah, I know there are some, including Lowry last year, who have stated that there are actually advantages of playing on that kind of field. I'm not one of them. I'm also writing this before the game even starts because I don't care about the result to know that I don't like watching games on a field intended for baseball. The only advantage of this game from last year's field debacle in Memphis is that the field actually looked playable. 

It's probably going to be Indy's tactic most of the time this year, but early in this game on this field, Indy was playing a lot of Route 1 balls, trying to get the ball up to Martinez, Guenzatti, and Williams. When Indy was awarded a penalty kick in the 25th minute, Indy was at 30% long balls (finished the game at 25%). The ball to Blake required a perfect touch from Blake, which he was able to do, and forced Tulu into making a decision that was a split second late, catching Blake and not the ball. For his effort, Blake stepped up to take the penalty kick and promptly roofed it in a place and at a pace that was impossible for Deric to stop. It might be a different way to play than many of these players used last year, but Blake's penalty kick put Indy up relatively early in the first half. 

As the half closed, the game turned into Indy's to lose. Stanley made a run from his left back position to put the ball into a dangerous location in the box that Deric misjudged and fell to Martinez, who ultimately had to head the ball into the goal from within 3-feet of the goal line. Indy's tactic to concede possession, and get the ball to the midfield and forwards as much as possible, was much more successful in this game than it was last week in Oakland. With a two goal lead, Indy further benefitted when former Louisville City player Oscar Jimenez picked up his second yellow card in the first minute of stoppage time. Down a man and down two goals, Memphis found themselves in a difficult situation going into the halftime locker room. 

At the halftime whistle, Indy trailed in time of possession (37% to 63%) and in shots (8 to 6), but led in shots on target (4 to 0), and most importantly, led in goals (2 to 0) and men on the field (11 to 10). Indy's long ball percentage at halftime was 28%, which would have been unheard of last season, was enough to put them ahead at the break. It's only two games into the 2024, but it's clear that the tactics from McAuley's squad are going to be widely different than those of Lowry. If it remains effective as the season progresses, who am I to judge. 

Oh wait, I can judge. It's kind of what I can do with this site. 

Oettl Distribution

As I did with preseason results, I don't put a ton of stock in early results until I see a much larger sample size, but the game plan seems simple. Concede possession if needed, make strong defensive decisions that could include just blasting the ball back up the field, and get the ball into the opponent's box as much as possible to give the team a chance to make a play. Playing out of the back looks to be a secondary thought. While nearly every player on this roster has the ability to play the ball in tight quarters and keep the ball on the ground, playing out of the back isn't going to be the focus. I'll blame it on the field size, but Oettl's clearances and corner kicks in this game wasn't spectacular, and we know he can play short, so maybe playing long from him isn't always the best plan.

Even with the man advantage, Indy pulled the possession differential back some, but Memphis still finished the game with a 58% to 42% advantage. The man advantage didn't change the tactics. Indy didn't start resorting to keep-away using the touch that we know they have the ability to do. The game still remained with Indy conceding possession, despite having one less defender to deal with from Memphis. Eventually, all that possession and effort allowed Memphis to get a late corner kick. That corner kick forced a scramble in the box that led to a Memphis goal to rob Oettl of a clean sheet. 

Indy managed to see out the last of the 6-minutes of stoppage time, but playing 11v10 for the entirety of the second half, Indy should have put the game further out of reach. Am I nit-picking in a 2-1 win on the road? Maybe, but Indy did not close out this game in a confident fashion. They did not get another shot on target in the second half, finishing the game with the same number of shots they had at halftime. With a man advantage, and this team, that should have happened.  

Indy get the win by getting a couple of timely first half goals, and then hanging on in the end against a undermanned Memphis team that played harder than Indy in the second half. The team returns home next week against Sacramento Republic for Indy's third game against a Western Conference opponent to start the season, as well as Indy's earliest home game in the club's history. 

 

The Game Beckons Game Ball

Right now, there's a clear focal point for the team and that is Jack Blake. I thought Williams did some good hold-up play up top, but for a team that needs to midfield to do both offensive and defensive work while often having the ball bypass them, Blake stood out again for me. So for the second game in as many weeks, Blake gets the GBGB.

Indy Eleven vs Oakland Roots - 11.01

Summary

- Opponent: Oakland Roots SC
- Location: Pioneer Stadium
- Attendance: 5,146
- Final Score: 2-1 L

- Starting XI: Oettl, Boudadi, Chapman-Page, Diz Pe, Stanley, Gibson (C), Blake, Lindley, Williams, Henderlong, Guenzatti

- Substitution: Collier 66' (Henderlong); O'Brien, J. (75' (Boudadi); Molina 86' (Gibson)

- Unused: Sulte, O'Brien, E., Sanchez

- Scoring Summary:
OAK –  3’ Cedeno (unassisted)
IND - Blake 43' (assist Boudadi)
OAK - Tamacas 50' (assist Donasiyano)

- Bookings:

IND - Blake 24’ (Yellow)
IND - Henderlong 25' (Yellow)
IND - Chapman-Page 41' (Yellow)
IND - Collier 70' (Yellow)
OAK - Njie 89' (Yellow)
OAK - Donasiyano 90'+8' (Yellow)
IND - Lindley 90'+8' (Yellow)

- Referee: Elton García

- Adage goals: None

Thoughts and Opinions

When I first started this site, I had intentions and goals of talking about soccer. World soccer. National soccer. Local soccer. Not having any team in the world that I cared about meant that talking about world soccer fell to the wayside fairly quickly. I did talk about the US National Teams for a bit, but even that trickled away and eventually stopped. Leaving this site to almost exclusively be about Indy Eleven. Game recaps, discussions about the stadium, and the regular changing of the head coach. Then the USL W League started and I had even more to talk about. More recaps and Championship winning teams to be excited about watching. The stadium finally settled on a location, which allowed for a few recent articles (A history of the site, a look at the groundbreaking from my perspective, and a fun In-Depth Look), but the site hasn't seem to change much in my past couple of visits past it so those have slowed down. I had an auction for The (Mini) LIPAFC Barrels that I created. After getting approval from Peter Wilt, I discussed whether Indy's first season could have been different based on players that the club was in discussions to sign, but weren't able to do so for one reason or another.

All that to say that I have learned over the years (like the men's team, this is now my 11th season covering the team) that I really need the break during the off-season. From March 12, 2023 to my annual season recap on November 6th, I wrote 57 articles. That's an average of 1.7 articles per week, but during those summer months when the women are in action, there were times when it felt like I was writing 3 or 4 a week. While it's nowhere near John Morrisey level of work at USL Tactics, I'm no longer at an age where I can grind that like, particularly since this isn't my day job and I want to have a life with my wife and kids too. So when the team crashed out of the playoffs in a 5-nil beat-down from Charleston, I moved closer to my hibernation mode. I did my season recap, but have generally been radio silent since that article. 

Consciousness is greatly diminished. This varies by species, but many hibernating animals are completely oblivious to their surroundings and are nearly impossible to wake up. If you were to wake up a hibernating animal midwinter, you would be effectively killing it. It would use up so much energy warming itself up in order to awaken that it would have no chance of making it to spring even if it could re-enter hibernation. - How Hibernation Works

I managed to awaken my consciousness long enough to write an article about the departure of Mark Lowry. I had an off-the-record conversation with Mark that will never see the light of day, and two articles around the hiring of current head coach Sean McAuley  (Will it even Matter? and the begin of the McAuley era), and watched Indy's Undrafted series. Beyond that, I've mostly done other things. I've worked on the novel I've been writing. I've watched college basketball. I've watched Taylor Swift learn to love football. I wonder what my life will be like when Indy Eleven officially take the field as part of the USL Super League, thereby providing club games year-round since they league is intending to be on the international schedule.

I avoided discussing Indy's off-season because I take very little stock in the results of those games, winning or losing. It's notable that Indy outscored their opponents 18-2, but there are a number of factors that can lead to that. So I tend to not value those results, and only managed to attend one of the preseason games since "closed" games were truly "closed" games this year, even to the media. 

Tonight/this morning though, my hibernation came to an end as Indy was officially back in league action against Oakland, a club that came to Indy last year and handed Indy a 3-nil defeat. Within 3-minutes of the start, I was looking to get my hibernation restarted as Indy conceded an early goal to begin the season in a negative fashion. Indy seemed to settle in after watching their league play begin with an immediate play-from-behind mode. McAuley's immediate pressing and desire to keep the ball in the offensive end became clear.

However, around the 24th minute, the match took at weird turn as Blake and Henderlong saw yellow cards shown to them in rapid succession, and it was announced that Guenzatti also received one, though that one didn't show up on the Match Center. Blake received his card for unnecessarily chirping at the referee, while Henderlong received his for a late tackle. Chapman-Page added to the yellow total in the closing minutes of the first half with a professional, but very necessary, foul as Rodriguez would have had acres of space in front of him on a counter if he had made it passed Chapman-Page. If the first game is going to be any indication, Indy isn't going to be in the running for any "fair play" tiebreakers as the season progresses.

Halftime Heatmap

Indy put significant pressure on Oakland after going down early, and finally found their break-through in the 43rd minute, when Blake first-timed a first-touch cross from Boudadi. The shot from near the penalty spot was low and through traffic that Blanchette couldn't stop to give Indy the equalizer in the 43rd minute. Indy finished the half with a nearly 60/40 advantage in possession, 16 crosses, a 13 to 1 advantage in shots (4 to 1 on target), with possession weighted heavily in Oakland's end of the field including in Blanchette' box. Indy was on the wrong side of the yellow card battle, but the equalizer had been coming and put Indy in a good position going into the halftime locker room. 

Then they put it all that good work behind them by quickly giving up a 2nd goal to Oakland in the 50th minute as Oakland worked their way through the Indy defense. Boudadi helped keep Tamacas onside, who worked his way through the line and had his choice of shots before sending it to Oettl's right side and out of his reach to put Indy back in playing-from-behind mode. The goal seemed to finally settle Oakland as they gained a better foothold on the game and the second half wasn't as one-sided as the first half felt. 

Fulltime Heatmap

In the end, Indy's inability to start quickly in each of the two halves and the preseason goal scoring that didn't follow the team westward were what ultimately doomed them to an early season loss, and perpetuating their struggles against the Western Conference teams. Last year's "results didn't match the performance" mantra has continued into a new season, at least to start, as the fulltime heatmap still shows the bulk of the game being played in Oakland's half. Whether it persists further into the season will be a discussion as we move forward, but for the Indy fans that stayed up past midnight Eastern Time, the new coach, new players, new sponsors, and new jerseys looked like the old 2023 frustrations. The team did finish with a 19% long ball rate, which is 7% points higher than last year's average of 12%, which may be the main indicator of McAuley's tactics versus Lowry's preferred play-from-the-back, possession-based style the past couple of years. The loss also brings Indy's opening match record to 3W-5D-3L. In Indy's previous two times where they started a season with an opening game loss, they made the playoffs once and missed the playoffs once, so it's not time to worry just yet. 

Indy return to action next weekend in the garbage field known as AutoZone Park so we'll see how McAuley's preferred style of play works within the confines of a baseball-housed pitch. For now, Indy ends the first weekend of league play at the bottom of the table with some things to figure out on how to start halves better.

The Game Beckons Game Ball

In a game that went the way it did, Jack Blake's continued run-of-form from a goal scoring perspective from the preseason is enough tonight to give him the GBGB. There were some other good performances despite the result, but in the season opening, Blake's late half equalizer gives him the nod.

The McAuley era has begun in Indy

I said most of what I wanted to say yesterday about the new coaching hire, even before I knew who the Indy Eleven were pegging to be the new person leading the team. Today, the club announced that Sean McAuley would be taking the reigns on the sideline for the men's first team for the 2024 season. While I hope that I'm wrong, my opinion yesterday wasn't swayed by today's announcement. McAuley has minimal experience as a first-team head coach/manager, with short stints as caretaker/interim manager at Sheffield Wednesday in 2006 and again in 2009, and at Minnesota United for a bit this past season. He was the head coach of Sheffield Wednesday's Academy coach for 6 years, so there's at least that. He was at Sheffield at the same time as inaugural season player Jermaine Johnson, who was with the Sheffield first-team from 2007-2014 before joining Indy midseason.

None of that is enough for me to know how he's going to coach since he's only ever been an assistant at first-team level teams. What's his style, on and off the pitch? 

He has been on staff with Caleb Porter at Portland from 2012 - 2017, then on James O'Connor's staff at Orlando City in 2018 - 2020, before moving to Adrian Heath's staff at Minnesota. So it's not like he hasn't been around a high-level atmosphere, but there are still a lot of unknowns for me. 

After the announcement, the club posted the following about McAuley's mentality.

It starts day 1️⃣ pic.twitter.com/cpZGhW2LNB

— Indy Eleven (@IndyEleven) January 8, 2024

"I don't buy into the "it's going to take two or three years to turn anything around." As soon as we start the first training session, we'll be working towards winning the championship. It's that simple." - Sean McAuley

I don't think there has been a coach that has come to this club that didn't think the exact same thing. For whatever you thought of them and their style of play, Martin Rennie and Mark Lowry weren't short on confidence on their own ability to coach. Yet, something seems to always happen with this club, and we fall right back to my concerns from yesterday. 

I want to be wrong. I also have concerns. Those don't have to be mutually exclusive thoughts. I'm going to support him as much as possible, but I'm curious to see what happens if things don't start out the way he hopes; from his perspective and from the club's perspective.

Now that he has his own team, let's see what kind of players he and the front office bring in to, hopefully, fill in around the existing 12 players on the roster, so that we can start to see what kind of tactics he is planning to start with this season.

Will it even matter?

Indy Eleven posted on Friday that "A new era starts soon." with an image that implies that an announcement of the new coach will happen in the coming day(s). Since Mark Lowry and the team "parted ways" on November 28th, the club has signed one new player (Aedan Stanley) and the schedule has been released (first game in Oakland on March 9th), as well as the club announcing a  partnership with Grand Park as the club & Ersal's company Keystone Group will take over the operation and management of the facility, a partnership with CareSource, and a partnership to produce a new Indy Eleven-themed beer with Metazoa Taproom. In a vacuum, that's a lot of things going on with the club/team.

However, while Indy fans have waited (more or less) patiently, all the teams around them have been announcing player signings because they already have a coach in place and are building towards the season in a non-rushing fashion. The season has the same feeling to me as the transition from Tim Hankinson in 2017 to Martin Rennie in 2018. Hankinson was announced as leaving on November 28th, 2017. When Rennie was announced on January 16th, 2018, there were just a few weeks to put together a team to his liking before spring training began. As I previously mentioned in my article about Lowry's departure (ironically also occurring on November 28th), Rennie completely cleaned house of the 2017 roster, returning just three players; Ring, Braun, & Speas. Of that Rennie 2018 thrown-together-late roster, only 8 players survived to continue with Rennie in the 2019 season; Speas, Ouimette, Farr, Ayoze, Starikov, Pasher, Watson, & Matern. Rennie also released several players that were in contract to be in Indy during the 2018 season, leaving them struggling to find teams at the last minute. Turnover was a major part of those early Rennie days, and I can only hope that the new 2024 season coach does not follow that same pattern with the 12 players that are currently signed to the roster.

More to the point of this article, though, will it even matter? Will it even matter who is announced as the new coach?

I don't know who the incoming coach is going to be, despite some rumors and some guesses. However, I don't know that it will even matter. I fully expect this club, for the men's first team, to be in this exact same position in a year or two. 

Hankinson was a good coach whose second season was derailed by injuries. Though to be fair, he might have also lost the locker room a bit.

Rennie was a good coach whose teams account for 1/2 of Indy's playoff appearances, and seemingly had reached a point where he had enough. Spectacularly.

Lowry was an excellent coach, with proven success in the USL. For a number of factors, his first season in 2022 didn't go as planned. Indy struggled in the early part of the 2023 season, predominantly due to injuries and suspensions, but as players became healthy, Indy finished the last 17 games of the season (i.e., the second half of the season) with a 8W-5D-4L record, with a +8 goal differential in that span. The four losses were to Louisville, Memphis, New Mexico, and RGV (3 or the 4 were playoff teams, with RGV just narrowly missing). In the second half of the season, Indy averaged 1.70 points per game, getting points nearly 60% of the time. The 3-nil win late in the season at home against Detroit looked like the best Indy had played all season, and looked exactly like how a Mark Lowry team typically wants to play. They followed up that performance a couple of games later with a dominating performance in the first half of the San Antonio game with some of the most fluid, beautiful soccer before the game went off the rails after Asante's second yellow card put the team down a man. 

The team, and the way they were playing at the end of the year, was exactly what I expected to see from a Mark Lowry coached team. The team made progress throughout the year and managed to make the playoffs despite the early season injuries and suspensions. The team looked like it was building towards something sustainable, with a historically winning coach who, every indication to me during the seasons, liked being in Indianapolis.

Yet, we find ourselves in the early weeks of January, still waiting for the official announcement of a new coach so that we can then hear about new players, and then begin thinking how the season is going to progress. New players that history has told us time after time are going to take time to gel together. So the 2024 season could likely be marginal, and bad at worst, and given the late roster build, will likely start off rough. Maybe Indy makes the playoffs. Maybe they don't. Either way, the coach almost always gets a pass for the first season because they "inherited" some of the roster, despite the fact that the players that this coach will be inheriting from the 2023 season are some of the best players in the league. So unless things go absolutely horribly with a missed playoffs and losing the locker room, the new coach will get a second season to bring in some other players, and success at that point will be unknown. 

Either way, will it even matter?

Martin Rennie is the longest tenured coach for Indy with 99 official games (+1 friendly), which was 3 seasons + 8 games of the fourth season, but really only amounted to 2.75 seasons of actual games due to the shortened 2020 season. Hankinson coached 70 games across all competitions (2 seasons), Lowry coached 72 games (2 seasons). The history of this club has shown that two seasons of failure (or less) and they're definitely headed somewhere else and two-ish seasons of success and they're probably still headed somewhere else, because that has been the club's method of operation. I can't envision the club hiring a coach that will suddenly have full control over roster selection capable of having immediate success, who will then also stick around for very long. I think Lowry might have been that guy in 2024 and beyond, but that ship has sailed, with reports out that he is headed to Salt Lake City to be the head coach of the Real Monarchs, Real Salt Lake's MLS Next Pro team. 

Every single one of those three coaches had some level of success during their tenure and yet they, or the club, felt like it wasn't a good fit to continue any further. I have thoughts and theories about why (I described one of those imaginary scenarios in my article about Lowry's departure, but I can imagine more), and all of those thoughts and theories lead me to wonder if it will even matter who the next coach is when it's finally announced. I just don't see the coaching carrousel trend changing here in Indy in the foreseeable future. 

Whomever gets announced soon, I think the "new era" is going to continue to look significantly like the "past eras."

Parted Ways - Mark Lowry

In the summer of 2021, I wrote an article about how Indy Eleven "mutually parted ways" with Martin Rennie after an odd on-air rant after a game. Twelve hours later, and the club and Rennie went different directions. Today, the club announced that they "parted ways" with Mark Lowry, who joined the club just over two years ago. Not sure if there was anything to the different phrasing by not including the "mutually" part, but it stands out to me as interesting if nothing else.

I think the last time I was this surprised about a front office move was the off-season before the aforementioned Martin Rennie joined the club. That off-season was full of surprises as the 2017 team led by Tim Hankinson transitioned to the 2018 team led by Martin Rennie, in a new league (NASL to USL), and in a new stadium (Carroll to Lucas Oil), much of that announced extremely last minute as the club tried to extract itself from the dying NASL. The 2018 team had no resemblance to the 2017 team, returning just Ring, Braun, & Speas, after Rennie decided that he couldn't see any place on his team or in the club for any of the 2017 players who had just a season before made it to the NASL's Soccer Bowl before being beaten by the Cosmos in penalty kicks. Rennie couldn't see a place for a ball-hawking forward like Eamon Zayed or a goalkeeping legend like Jon Busch. Hell, it was seemingly only because of a near fan-uprising that he kept club legend Ring around. That off-season was weird as hell.

Today's surprise departure of Lowry takes a close second in my opinion. 

There was absolutely nothing from my perspective that would have made me guess this was going to happen. Lowry seemed to genuinely convey to me during conversations that Indy was the place he wanted to be to keep moving Indy forward, and to be a part of the first games at Eleven Park. It seemed like such a given to me, after getting the team back to the playoffs this year, that I barely wrote anything about the coaching situation in my end-of-year off-season article. 

Could I have misread the situation? Definitely.

Do I think there is something else going on? Definitely. 

The following is a scenario that I can envision happening to lead us to watching yet another coach, this one highly successful in this league, walk away from the club after signing nine core pieces of the 2023 roster.

Martin Rennie "mutually parted" Indy, in part, because of the poor turf at Carroll stadium. Despite a new turf being installed in 2020, the team that Mark Lowry put together still found that field to be less than ideal in the way that it played. Lowry found late in the season that with some pregame effort, this new version of the turf could be massaged enough to play in a more predictable way, thereby allowing the team's preferred style of play to shine. That level of field maintenance takes time, and time is money. Part of the theory behind artificial turf fields is that they are supposed to be low maintenance. I'm guessing, and I stress guessing, that Lowry requested more budget next year for the field maintenance.

That, by itself, wouldn't have been enough to "part ways," mutually or otherwise.

However, and I don't remember if this was said to me on- or off-record, so I could get in trouble here for saying something that I shouldn't, but many of the clubs' groups had their budgets frozen for at least the last month of the season. Lowry likely had one of the highest paid rosters in the USL Championship this past year, but that money was focused on the core group of players. As the team found out, that created a depth of skill problem when suspensions or injuries sidelined some of those core players. I'm guessing, and I stress guessing, that Lowry requested more budget next year to bring in some other players to have a higher level of depth than what the team had this year. That additional depth was going to come with a cost.

Ersal and/or Stremlaw said no. Lowry said that he didn't think he can get the team any higher without that money for stadium and player help. "Then we have reached an impasse." 

Ways parted.

There's an oversimplification in that scenario, and I honestly don't know if any of that scenario is true. Can I see all of it, and more, happening? Definitely. 

As I stated today on X (formerly known as), whatever happened on the field, Mark Lowry was the first coach from this club to remember my name at press conferences after games and answer all my questions, on- or off-record. The last game of the season, he asked Ian Gilmour if I was there. He was conscientious of me being a grassroots, fan perspective of covering the team. On multiple occasions, he would honestly answer questions for me that he didn't have to answer. Questions that I wouldn't have bothered asking his predecessors because I knew they would just answer them in general coach-speak terms. He knew that he could trust me with the information and answered my questions openly, knowing that if he said "this part is off-record," that it would be, which gave me the confidence to try and find out more about the way his coaching mind works. 

I honestly think that Mark Lowry was the right man for the job to get Indy to higher level. The club and even fans think that Indy need to get back to the successes the team used to have. That is not this club. Actually, I should be more specific and say that is not the men's first team. The Academy and the women's side have been successful. The men's first team is, and has been, an average to below average performing team for nearly the entirely of its history. 

• The team has now had 4 permanent coaches and 2 interim coaches in 10 seasons of action. 
• The team has made the playoffs just 4 times in those 10 seasons.
• The team has just 4 seasons with a positive goal differential and two of those have just barely made it to that threshold (2016 - +21; 2019 - +20; 2020 - +2; 2023 - +3).
• In the team's time in the USL-C, they have finished 7th (2018), 3rd (2019), 3rd (out of 4 teams in their group due to the 2020 pandemic arrangement), 12th (2021), 9th (2022), and 6th (2023) in their conference.
• The team has made it to one league final (2016 NASL season, which had just 11 teams in the league and 4 of them made the playoffs).
• The team has made it to one conference final (2019 USL season, which imploded in the final minutes to Louisville).
• The team has 1 piece of hardware; a "spring season" championship because the NASL was kooky-dooks and split the season into two parts, that Indy won on the third tiebreaker. 

Look, I love the team, the players, and those limited successes, but this is not a team that can be described as being a consistent on-field beacon of light. 

Assistant Coach Gabe Zapponi was brought to Indy as one of "Lowry's guys." Don't be surprised if he departs too. Jerome, Rebellon, Velasquez, to name a few, are guys that Lowry has taken with him from place to place. Don't be surprised if none of them return to Indy. Nobody knows what player contracts look like, but a caveat that I would want in my own contract with a team would be that it was contingent upon the manager in charge. King was in El Paso with Lowry and then Lowry brought King back here to Indy. Did he know Lowry was on the way out? Would he have re-signed if he knew Lowry wasn't going to be here? I think Lindley wants to be here close to family. Same for Quinn, whose wife's family is from Ohio. Did the rest of the guys that re-signed want to be here or to play for Lowry? The guys that haven't signed yet? I have no idea where they will fall now that Lowry is onto a different team. As a result, announcements for returning players might not happen again until the new coach is hired, whenever that might happen. 

As I already said, I honestly think that Mark Lowry had the ability to get Indy beyond just the occasional good season and turn Indy into a perennial contender. Whatever happened between when the announcement of the first group of players returning and today's announcement of Lowry's departure, Indy took a step backwards today.

An In-Depth Look at Eleven Park

Okay, you're about to figure out that the title of this article was probably my first click-bait title ever. It's also supposed to be funny because I doubt anybody outside of the club or the design team is going to have any kind of in-depth look at Eleven Park until the team releases an article in the IBJ.

It's the Indy Eleven off-season and so content on this site tends to slow way down. I have the idea of an article in the works, but it is still trying to get off the ground at this point. Instead, you get this look at the Eleven Park in a way many of us probably haven't done to date.

There hasn't been any substantial news from the club regarding the stadium design since the ceremonial groundbreaking at the end of May, so let's remind ourselves what the current, publicized, version of Eleven Park looks like from the architectural renderings from that time.

I can't wait to be in one of those seats (or hopefully on the sidelines with my press credentials, assuming guys like me are still provided credentials in the new stadium) for that first game in 2025. 

Let me start the rest of this by saying that my day job is an engineer and that I work with architects, so I understand the constraints they are under. There's normally a need to do things in great detail, quickly, and under budget. Normally, you can only get one or two of those done to the level you want, but rarely do you get all three. So you have to develop the occasional shortcut to give yourself a fighting chance at getting close to achieving all three goals. I believe that is what I observed when I recently, for unknown reasons other than maybe needing a stadium news fix, I started zooming into the image files. I began to notice the shortcuts.

Let's start by looking at the full development view looking west, and let's specifically focus in on the part of the image I've highlighted below.

Match Report for a game against FC Cincinnati. A team that played their last game in the USL in 2018. Trust me, this is the least weird use of a graphic in this post...

How about we move to the Street View image?

Three of the same guy with a lightsaber just hanging out in the plaza. He's not the only one waiting to take part in the Clone Wars, but he's the one I saw the most. 

Staying with that image, but moving to the right side of the image.

What The absolute F!! Zooming in further makes it look like the creepy panda-esque soccer ball is wearing a NYCFC hat, but I could only find an image where the creepy panda was wearing a NY Red Bulls hat. Either way, we're starting to see a pattern of using MLS team images as filler in the Indy Eleven graphics.

Moving to the Balcony View creates a plethora of stock images being used in unfortunate ways.

For crying out loud... In the graphics of a $1B development, we immortalized Indy losing to Charleston in the 24th minute by a score of 1-nil. The good news is that based on other contextual clues, Indy did go on to win that game 4-1 in front of 10,272 fans with a goal from Cochran, a brace by Pinho, and Own Goal getting in on the action. But still... All the available screen shots that could have been used for a fuzzy small piece of a larger image and that's what made the cut?

Looking out towards the stadium:

Save the children! They're everywhere! Seriously, they're scattered throughout the image in various forms, all just as creepy and unnerving as the next.

What if we look down at the fans that are sitting immediately below us?

Wright-Phillips. We've already seen a panda soccer ball that might have originated from a New York Red Bulls image, but modified to NYCFC colors. So let's assume that a #29 Wright-Phillips is Shaun Wright-Phillips. Don't recall him ever playing for Indy. Or even playing against Indy... 

What more can we find standing on the balcony overlooking the plaza? Let's look to the far left.

What do you know, Indy Eleven has some NYCFC fans in the crowd. Somebody at Populous is clearly a fan of New York City.

Getting inside the stadium doesn't make anything any better. Given the proximity to the virtual camera, I think Populous was just getting rushed for time at this point. You get quantity not quality. Can't always get both.

She's not the only one seeing herself...

And the Clone Wars are in full effect just around the corner from our vantage point.

Identical Septuplets?

The absolute horror movie of this in-depth look at Eleven Park occurs in the lower left corner of the image with one of the clones and the person with her.

It's one thing to be in touch with your friends, but it's quite another to have your limbs going through each other's.

Eventually, Indy Eleven will release more information on the stadium now that demolition of the buildings is nearly complete and the site work will be able to begin in earnest. Until then, I might play a bit more of this weird game of Where's Waldo to see what else I can find lurking in the details of these images. I'm nearly sure I found a few more NYCFC flags, but who knows what else I'll find.

Indy Eleven 2023 Recap & 2024 Off-Season Outlook

Is simply making the playoffs considered a successful season? That depends significantly on who you ask and your perspective. If you've haven't made the playoffs since the 2019 season, it's at least a successful step in the right direction. When that playoff appearance ends in a 5-nil drubbing on the road, some of the shine is taken off the achievement.

So I clearly have mixed feelings about the 2023 Indy Eleven season, but maybe that's because a team like Louisville, who had a drastically down year for them, still finished ahead of Indy and still played in the Eastern Conference finals for like the hundredth season in a row. So the "why can't it ever be us?" and "will it ever be us?" thoughts are rampant in my brain and I don't think I'm the only Indy Eleven fan who is thinking this way. Indy was playing some really good football down the stretch as injuries and suspensions slowed down. Then they seemed to lose their way for a couple games when Quinn became unavailable due to his season ending injury before the New Mexico game. Wins against Detroit and Tulsa, and one of the best halves of soccer they played all season in San Antonio before finishing with a draw after an Asante red card, and Indy looked like they had the chance to do something special in the playoffs. Missing Asante, and then Blake, for the playoff game meant Indy's season-long trend of trying to field their best team but being undone by injuries and suspensions once again reared its head to similar results as the early part of the season. Indy had, on paper, one of the most talented rosters in the entire league, but a 5-nil loss to end the season feels like the team underachieved. When the roster began taking shape during this past preseason, Indy looked like they had a very solid core, but might struggle with young and inexperienced depth. Lowry and the club struggled all season to find the players and the on-field group to provide consistent results. With the exception of the 6-game undefeated streak in August/September, when most of the guys were healthy and not suspended, Indy looked like a team that could win the league one game and looked like a team that might not make the playoffs the next game.  

Last season, Coach Lowry guaranteed that Indy would be a playoff team in 2023. The team made good on that guarantee, but it still feels like the team underachieved. 

Looking to 2024

Stadium

Let's start with "American Soccer's Greatest Dive Bar." Indy continued to play at Carroll Stadium this season, which has the same issues it has always had. It's starting to show its age, it's not ideally suited for professional soccer, it's branded with another team's logo, and it has a significant lack of amenities that most fans have come to expect from other sporting venues in this city and around the country. Concessions continue to be run out of cargo containers, and from my experience seem to have a very minimal amount of items sold from them. Most of the concession effort is accomplished through a rotating string of food trucks from the area. That isn't necessarily a bad way to accomplish concession, but I don't think I've ever seen the club provide a list of what trucks will be at each game. That's something that I would recommend the club provide, even if it is just a social media post a couple days before the game, so that fans/families know what to expect and/or be excited about seeing (for me, it's the Ben's Pretzel truck). 

The stadium does have a relatively new turf, which was replaced during June of 2022, but the team doesn't always have the best opinion of it. After the Detroit victory at the end of the season, Lowry was happy about the turf for that game, but had a poor opinion of it from the previous game, stating "the turf was so bad last week. I don't know what happened. It was so bad. Today though. It got brushed. Me and Gabe got here early and did some work on it. It made the difference." He expanded, wanting this next part to be "on record":

"The field conditions are not the same for both teams. It's not. Conditions are different for each team based on each team's style of play. So it's not the same for both teams. For example, we went to Detroit to start the season, the third game, I think it was super windy. It suited us better, because we keep on the floor, they like to go long and their balls get caught [in the wind], so we beat them. We like to play on the floor. If the field surface isn't great, then it affects us more than the other team. It's not the same for both teams. It's based on style. The turf played great tonight. We saw some goals and great action. That's the reality."

 

Indy had a better record on the road than they did at home, despite everybody's desire to make The Mike a fortress. Indy had an 8W-4D-5L record on the road and a 5W-6D-6L record at home. With all of that in mind, I fully expect that the team will be brushing the turf a lot more next season because "keeping the ball on the floor" isn't going to change next season (more on that in a minute). Indy, if the schedule goes as planned, will have another season and a half on the Carroll Stadium turf because Eleven Park has started moving forward. 

Indy announced in June of 2022 that the location for Eleven Park would be at the old Diamond Chain site near the convergence of South Street, West Street, and Kentucky Avenue next to the White River. In February 2023, new renderings were released showing the updated vision for the Eleven Park development including the stadium, residences, offices, hotel, parking, and even a 4,000 seat music venue. 

On the last day of May 2023, the club held a ceremonial groundbreaking on the site to publicly kick-off the process of converting the historical site into the Eleven Park development. As has been the trend of the club when it comes to the stadium, there had been nothing conveyed to the public about the stadium until this past week when it was announced that the "The Metropolitan Development Commission on Wednesday gave preliminary approval for the creation of a new downtown taxing district to support the Indy Eleven’s proposed soccer stadium." 

That doesn't mean that the site has been without activity since the groundbreaking ceremony. If you recall, here is generally what the site looked like in November of 2022.   

Diamond Chain Site (Google Maps - 2022)

Below are some photos of what the site looks like as of this past Friday... The building that was all the way to the left in the Street View has been demolished for a few months. The southern and western portions of the main building have been reduced to just a small sliver, leaving just the easternmost section by West Street and several large piles of debris waiting to be salvaged or sent to the landfill.

Unfortunately, I don't know much about the status of the design of the stadium or the initial components of Phase 1 (stadium, parking, and Tower 1). I've heard rumors, but nothing that I can or should convey at this point.  

Photo: Patrick Cummings

Photo: Patrick Cummings

Photo: Patrick Cummings

Photo: Patrick Cummings

Coach

Photo: Don Thompson Photography

I'm not sure there's much to say here. Unless Coach Lowry goes to a different team, making the playoffs this year likely saves Indy fans from going through another team rebuild with a new coach and new players. For good or bad, his results here in Indy don't exactly lead to a ton of teams trying to steal him from Indy, regardless of his successes in the past. I also have the feeling that Lowry now sees Indy as the challenge that is going to show his coaching chops. With the injuries, suspensions, and general depth or field concerns, Lowry was forced to dig deep into his bag of tricks that weren't his normal tactics to try and find ways to get results. It also doesn't hurt that there is a stadium coming that will likely be the best stadium in the USL when it is finished in 2025. There's a feeling that players and Coach want to be around when the stadium opens. Much like coaches at universities use their facilities to entice teenagers to come play football/basketball in Division 1 sports, the Eleven Park development is a facility that will draw top players to the team.

When Lowry left El Paso, it was a surprise to their fans, but they had been going through a run of successes without the final payoff. Without the same level of success here, I think Lowry intends to be here for at least the next couple of seasons.

Players

The 2022 season was the first season under Coach Lowry. As I've discussed over the years in these season end reviews, it seems like the majority of the player contracts for Indy Eleven have the appearance of 2 year contracts or 1 year contracts with a 2nd year option. The existing contracts, loans, and trades that happened this year make it another year where it could be difficult to accurately determine who will be returning next year. However, all the roster movement also meant that Lowry brought in or released the players that he thought would make the team better. Moving forward will likely be this core, while also bringing in depth at all positions.

Based on my own opinions, here are what players from this year's roster that I can envision being somewhere else and who might be returning (not including the Academy players as they seem to fall under an even larger variable than the 1st team players):

Gone:

1. Fjeldberg - Transferred to Colorado Springs. for King. No matter how positive an opinion Lowry has/had of Fjeldberg, there's almost no way that I can envision Jonas being loaned to RGV one season and then transferred in a second season and then find his way back to Indy. 
2. Taghvai-Najib - loaned at the end of the season and I don't recall him even making an appearance on any gameday roster. Signed for depth at the end of the season and still didn't see the bench. Historically, that never bodes well for a player returning the next season.
3. Tejada - Transferred to Colorado Springs. 
4. Torres - Alann was released from the team early in the season and I hesitated even including him in this list, but have done so for completeness. Also, something mysterious happened around his departure because I can't find him on any team this year after he was released and club staff refused to provide me with any information on what happened, neither on or off record.
5. Walker - Already released in September.

Possibly Gone:

1. Chapman-Page - loan expired, but he could be resigned. Hard to say. He was very effective in his time here, but you just never know with loans. 
2. Molina - this is one of those times when I really don't know what might happen. He could just as easily be in the returning list.
3. Reveno - loaned from NE Revolution in August. Historically, not many of those kinds of transactions have persisted into the next season.
4. Rissi - loaned to Miami for Chapman-Page, so in theory he could have been coming back to Indy, but I think Rissi's play that prompted the loan was because Lowry and the players had started to lose confidence in Rissi. I would be surprised if he returns.
5. Robledo - loaned from FC Cincinnati. This could depend on whether FCC think the loan was effective enough to bring him back into their fold full-time or try a loan with a different team.
6. Trilk - After Oettl went out injured, Trilk proved in the second half of the season that he is a #1 capable goalkeeper in this league. Goalkeepers are a different breed so I could be surprised, but a third season in Indy as the #2 wouldn't be good for his further development or his personal goals and he might be seeking a place where he can be the #1 from the start. He wouldn't be the first keeper to return to the team knowing they weren't going to be the #1 so I could be wrong on this one.

Probably Returning:

1. Asante - Solo has reached that age and stage in his career where he will likely never reach the same level of goal scoring and assist proficiency that he had during his time in Phoenix, but his vision, first touch, and set piece ability is enough to keep him around. 
2. Blake - His presence in the midfield for the playoff game would have helped just like it did the rest of the year. I think he'll be back.
3. Boudadi - Younes is dynamic up the wing forcing teams to deal with his pace and effort. If history is any indication, a player that accounted for as many minutes as Boudadi usually returns the next season.
4. Dambrot - When healthy, Robby provided the same as Boudadi but on the opposite side. Lowry likes his wingers to get involved in the offense and Dambrot is an eager participant in that part of the field. 
5. Diz Pe - Diz learned to control his emotions as the season progressed keeping teams from provoking him into bad decisions and he became the rock in the defense. At 6'-3", he's a great presence in the air on the offensive and defensive side of the ball. 
6. Guenzatti - Sebastian played in every single game for the Eleven this year; all 34 regular season games, the 2 U.S. Open Cup games, and the playoff game. Guenzatti was the team's leading scorer and Lowry brought Guenzatti to Indy because he thought Seb could be a double digit scorer again despite some down seasons in Tampa.  
7. Jerome - Mechack is a "Lowry guy". As I indicated in last year's recap, Jerome had a few more uncharacteristic errors than I saw from him when I watched him in ELP, but he played really well down the stretch of the season. Unless something drastic happens, he'll be back.
8. King - Played for Lowry in ELP. Traded Fjeldberg to get King to Indy. Lowry will want to keep him around in 2024.
9. Lindley - A local guy who was a cornerstone of the roster this year. Cam wants to be in Indy closer to family and Lowry wants him in the Indy midfield. There aren't guarantees in the business of soccer, but Lindley returning next season might be close.
10. Martinez - Provided pace up top and showed a flexibility in where he could play. He could slide into the "Possibly Gone" category, but I think he returns for next season.
11. Oettl - Until his injury, Yannik was the clear #1 for Lowry. I don't see that changing next year.
12. Pinho - He left Indy to be closer to family in Brazil. However those issues were resolved, Pinho seemed to be glad to be back in Indy. I'm surprised he didn't get more minutes, but I still think he returns next season.
13. Quinn - The other player in USL Championship history to have at least 50 goals and 50 assists besides Asante, and Indy's second leading scorer this year behind Guenzatti, Aodhan was a key component of the Indy midfield. He has also started setting roots here with a young family and that will make him want to stick around. Lowry would be crazy to not keep him.
14. Rebellon - I continue to have concerns about his ability to stay healthy, but he's another "Lowry guy." 
15. Vazquez - Until his injury, he was nearly a guaranteed starter. Whether his returning next year will be as a starter, or much needed depth may depend on the rest of the roster, but I think he also returns. 
16. Velasquez - A midseason addition to the roster can often be a hit-or-miss on whether they return the next season. Velasquez played for Lowry in ELP. As such, he might not yet be a "Lowry guy," but getting him here this year could be the start of that designation.

Final Thoughts

As I said in the beginning, making the playoffs makes the year feel like a better campaign than last year's season. Losing as badly as they did in that playoff game makes it feel like 2 steps forward, but 1 step back. For now, I'm clinging to the fact that I believe Lowry is a really good coach with really good players at his disposal. The returning players and whatever gets added during the offseason need to stay healthy (which is difficult to project) and available for selection (which is easier if you don't make bad decisions on the field that get you multiple yellow cards or red cards). If that happens, and the team isn't constantly being forced to find a new combination of players, I think there were several games that get better results to match their good performances. Indy was just 4 points behind playoff-hosting Memphis in the table. It's not difficult to fathom just a few games going differently to place Indy in the playoff-hosting line and things being different.

I'm not a huge fan of using the turf at Carroll Stadium as an excuse, particularly given the new age of that turf, but now that Lowry knows with some regular housekeeping of the field throughout the season the field will play better, that should be one more excuse to remove from the list.

Announced attendance remains high, and despite some changes in the renewal benefits for season ticket members, I think attendance is going to continue to remain high. That continues to be something that Indy can't claim as being a concern. 

Indy's season hashtag was #It'sTime. It turned out not to be (at least for the men's 1st team), but the club has found success in other areas (women's and Academy) this year. Expectations were high this year, and I don't see any reason why they shouldn't be just as high next year with another year under everyone's belt with Lowry's system and more players who he think fit that system. Can success breed more success? Guess we'll see.