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 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.