Summary- Opponent: San Diego FC
- Location: Carroll Stadium
- Attendance: 9,072
- Final Score: 2-2 D
- Starting XI: Oettl, Boudadi, King, Diz Pe, Dambrot, Rissi, Quinn, Lindley, Martinez, Molina, Guenzatti (C)
- Substitution: Asante 58’ (King); Vazquez 66’ (Dambrot); Robledo 74’ (Molina)
- Unused: Trilk, Jerome, Sanchez, Velasquez
- Scoring Summary:
SD – Adams, C. 32’ (Penalty Kick)
SD – Conway 54’ (assist Moshobane)
IND – Quinn 66’ (Penalty Kick)
IND – Quinn 82’ (Penalty Kick)
- Bookings:
IND – Dambrot 7’ (Yellow)
IND – King 14’ (Yellow)
SD – Perez 39’ (Yellow)
IND – Diz Pe 57’ (Yellow)
IND – Rissi 58’ (RED)
SD – Damus 74’ (Yellow)
SD – Martin 89’ (Yellow)
IND – Lindley 90’+12’ (Yellow)
- Referee: Matthew Corrigan
- Adage goals: None
Thoughts and Opinions
Fresh off a 2-nil win in Hartford last weekend in the pogo stick season, Indy returned home to The Mike with the goal of making the most of their 4 games out of 6 in the month of July by reversing the fortunes of last year’s game against San Diego. When Indy went to SD last season, Indy returned home with an enjoyable weather experience, but a 5-nil loss. Indy start the month with San Diego, who are hovering around the Western Conference’s playoff line like Indy is in the Eastern Conference. After a game next weekend against FC Tulsa, Indy then go on a run of games against all six of the teams currently above them on the table. If Indy is going to make any movement up the table, the next month is going to be vital. Getting a good result in the next two home games against SD and Tulsa would help provide some confidence before that stretch of games.
Indy fans were able to welcome back Nick Moon and Elliot Collier who are now plying their trade with the Loyal. Moon did exactly what Indy fans saw of him from his time here. Blast up the left flank, send in crosses, and generally be a pain for the back line of Indy, especially Boudadi who was charged with trying to keep Moon at bay. Collier came on after the halftime break.
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| First Half Heat Map |
Indy and San Diego looked like they both wanted to play the same way for a majority of the early going in this game. Press the other’s back line and then find moments to go over the top. Possession, possession, possession, GO! So much of this early game happened within 20-yards on each side of the half field line. Just after the 30-minute mark, one of those quick attacks put SD through Indy’s backs and led to a poke from Boudadi in the box that got more player than ball, and SD headed to the spot. Oettl went to his right, Charlie Adams went the other way, and in the 32nd minute Indy once again found themselves chasing another game. The middle of the field chess match continued until halftime.
Within ten minutes of coming out of the locker room, the possession, possession, possession, GO! gave San Diego their second goal as Moshobane and Conway one-and-two touched their way through the Indy defense to give them a 2-nil lead. At that point, the hill became a little harder to climb so Lowry made his first changes from a defensive posture bringing in Asante for King.
Rissi then threw both team's initial game plans out of the window when he picked up his second red card in the past four games in the 58th minute after getting beat by a toe poke around him. The hill from the first goal became a mountain with a two-goal deficit and down a player.
Friday night, Indy fans watched as the women took it to St. Charles who were playing with two fewer players due to still unknown reasons. Indy scored within the first 3 minutes and never took their collective foot off the throttle, getting their 16th goal of the game in the 89th minute, while keeping St. Charles scoreless. The team set a club and league record with their 16 goals and goal differential. While that was something that I'll likely never witness again, what happened tonight for Indy was something I never thought I would see from an Indy Eleven team.
Down 2 goals. Down a man.
Indy fought.
In the 65th minute, Asante's press with San Diego's box put him between the ball and Kyle Adams, who was a little rough with the diminutive Asante, who fell to the ground (as he is want to do), thereby forcing the ref to award a penalty kick, which helped kick start the interesting end to the game. Quinn stepped up to calmly slot home his fourth penalty kick of the season to bring the game back within a goal. The dreaded 2-l score line.
The penalty kick set into motion a closing 25 minutes where the game became wide open with both teams foregoing the early game midfield chess match and began to put ball after ball over the top. San Diego was trying to make full use of having a numbers advantage and a rash of Indy defenders on yellow cards, while Indy was clawing to get the game level. The game started as a chess match, but the fact that this game was taking place in the Mike A. Carroll Track and Soccer Stadium was poignant as the game turned into a track meet.
The track meet continued until Asante, again, found himself knocked down just inside the San Diego 18-yard box, and Indy was awarded their second penalty kick of the night. In the 82nd minute, Quinn once again stepped up and rocketed his kick to the right side of the goal while Koke Vegas went to the left. Despite being a man down for the preceding 24-minutes, Indy found themselves level in a game where they had also been down two goals.
With thunderstorms closing in on the stadium threatening to bring everybody's night to a wet end, Indy fans gutted out an announced 8 minutes of stoppage time that ballooned to 13 minutes to watch an improbable comeback from Indy. Indy Eleven and the fans would prefer to stop putting themselves in this positions by not giving up early goals and keeping guys healthy or free of red cards, the fight they showed tonight was heartening. In a season that has bounced around from good to bad enough to give fans whiplash, at least the team is fighting until the end. I'm willing to concede some results to bad luck, and some bad decisions, when the guys fight like they did tonight.
As has been the case since Week 11, Indy remains mired in 7th place on the table; still in a playoff position, but the inconsistent results and injuries have prevented them from moving up. On a two-game undefeated streak with Tulsa coming to town next weekend, Indy will hope to use tonight's result as a springboard for the rest of the month.
The Game Beckons Game Ball
Look, Quinn scored two goals from the spot. Asante set up the possibility for both of those goals by getting knocked down in the box twice. Both players could easily be awarded tonight's GBGB. As I've said on many occasions on this site, sometimes the person who receives this award from me often comes down to the player that stands out for me. Sometimes this is due to scoring or defense or goalkeeping. Tonight it comes down to the repeated vision of Cam Lindley to send ridiculous ball after ridiculous ball through the lines to give the guys in front of him a chance to do something with it. He sent balls over the top. He sent perfectly weighted balls along the ground through multiple defenders. He had a passing accuracy of 83%. He simply did the little things tonight that gave Indy a chance for the point tonight under difficult circumstances. My only issue with his game tonight was that the picked up his team-leading 7th yellow card of the season in the 90'+12' on a foul I'm not sure that he had to make. Otherwise, Cam had a good showing in front of the contingency of Lindleys that I saw in the stands tonight
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