Indy Eleven vs Cosmos - 01.07

- Opponent: New York Cosmos
- Location: New York
- Attendance: 3,581
- Final Score: 1-1
- Starting XI: Nicht (Captain), Stone, Norales, Hyland, Okiomah, Ring, Corrado, Moore, Smith, Ambersley, Spencer
- Substitutions: Smart (Corrado), Mendes (Moore), Ramirez (Spencer)
- Goals: Ring (76')
- Bookings: Norales (50'), Moore (70')






Another game and another come-from-behind effort required by the Indy Eleven. This week they waited an entire 4 minutes before giving up the first goal by the New York Cosmos. It makes it hard to win games when you are constantly expending so much effort to just get it back to level.  The positive for the week is that they didn't immediately give up another goal like they have been doing recently.  In fact, they managed to keep the Cosmos scoreless for the next 86 minutes and put one in themselves to finally end their 4-game losing streak.  It's still not a win, but at least it's some points, and points on the road.  It doesn't help them move up from the basement, but stopping a losing streak is probably just as important at this point in the Spring Season.

Being an away game, and having not signed up for the NASLLive feeds, the extent of what I know about this game is from what I read on the @IndyElevenLive Twitter feed.  So that means it's mostly numbers and not impressions of how they played.  Though based on the feed, their second half effort was stellar:

That's good to see since their defense is what has put them into their constant need to comeback.

Two more yellow cards this week bringing the season total to 16, with Norales accounting for yet another one.  Why do I keep bringing up the yellow cards lately?  Well, the NASL rules state that, "A player will be suspended for one game upon receiving his fifth yellow card – regardless of the nature of the infraction which resulted in his being awarded the yellow card."  Norales now has 4.  Norales is one of only four players on the Indy Eleven roster who has played every single minute of the season (Nicht, Hyland, and Ring the other three) for the team.  One more yellow for Norales, and that number will be reduced to three.  Ring has three himself, so it's not like he is free of danger either.

The Eleven have their second of three games in a 7-day span when they take on the Dayton Dutch Lions as part of the U.S. Open Cup on Wednesday.  In theory, this should be a win if you go by the convention that higher tier teams should beat lower tier teams, but the tournament always seems to have some teams that make a run against teas they shouldn't beat.  Let's hope the Dutch Lions aren't one of those teams.

Update:
Congratulations Brad Ring for making this week's NASL Team of the Week.

 

Update #2:

Congratulations Brad Ring for being this week's Play of the Week.