Indy Eleven vs Pittsburgh Riverhounds - 09.17

Summary

- Opponent: Pittsburgh Riverhounds SC
- Location: Highmark Stadium
- Attendance: 2,155
- Final Score: 1-0 L

- Starting XI: Trilk, Timmer, Cochran, Hackshaw (C), McQueen, Brown, Law, Ingram, Fjeldberg, Aguilera, Pinho
- Substitution: Asante 45' (Brown); Ayoze 68' (Law); Briggs 84' (Aguilera)

- Unused: Svetanoff, Jerome, Michael, Sanchez

- Scoring Summary:
PIT - Dikwa 79' (assist Walker)

- Bookings:
IND - Brown 42' (Yellow)
IND - Cochran 81' (Yellow)

- Referee: Matthew Conger
- Adage goals: None.

Thoughts and Opinions

How do you take the beautiful game and make it difficult to watch? It's really a pretty easy recipe. You take a cup of two struggling teams that have historically played low scoring games and add a heaping tablespoon of a heavy rain beforehand the game that makes the turf slick, and then put it on the stove and walk away. Come back 90 minutes later, and you have a half baked game that nearly nobody can stomach. 

There were periodic "chances" by both teams including the 79th minute goal by Dikwa, but this game was mostly tilted towards Tim Trilk and Indy's goal, with minimal real or effective chances from Indy.

What we do know is that Dane Kelley has 243 regular season appearances in USLC, 150 regular season appearances for Cochran in the league, and Dixon goes over 15,000 career minutes.

We also know that:

• Indy has now had 11 first halves without a goal. 
• They extend their losing streak to 4 games. 
• They have now gone 3 games without a goal. 
• They had a single shot on target.
• Passes were long (Both teams had over 20% long passes). 
• Movement was stagnant or, at a minimum, glacial. 
• Indy had very little effective action in their offensive third.
• Both Indy and Pittsburgh had one shot each on target. Pittsburgh scored that shot.

Like a cake recipe that goes bad, you throw this game in the trash and move toward a Saturday night affair with Detroit City. 

If you're an Indy fan, go to the 2:00 game with the women's team because they have a better than average chance to score and walk away with a win. I can't say the same thing about the men's team right now.

The Game Beckons Game Ball

Cochran had to do a lot of defending, and a lot of recovery and last-ditch defending. If I'm looking for a silver lining for a player to receive the GBGB, it would have to been his effort. I'm sorry A.J. that isn't a more glowing endorsement for this reward, but this was a difficult game to watch.