Indy Eleven vs Tampa Bay Rowdies - 11.19

Summary

- Opponent: Tampa Bay Rowdies
- Location: Carroll Stadium
- Attendance: 10,636
- Final Score: 2-0 L

- Starting XI: Sulte, Ofeimu, O'Brien, J., Diz Pe, Martinez, Stanley, Wootton, Lindley (C), Guenzatti, Williams, A., Williams, R.

- Substitution: Collier 65' (Guenzatti); Gibson 65' (Wootton); Mines 65' (Williams, A.); Neidlinger 82' (Ofeimu)

- Unused: Oettl, Chapman-Page, Henderlong, McCoy

- Scoring Summary:
TBR - Jennings 36' (assist Hilton)
TBR - Rivera 80' (unassisted)

- Bookings:

TBR - Crisostomo 13' (Yellow)
IND - Wootton 33' (Yellow)

- Referee: Thomas Snyder

- Adage goals: None

Thoughts and Opinions

This is an opposing goalkeeper
walking through the BYB line. Farr Love!

Indy Eleven South (also known as the Tampa Bay Rowdies) came to town with a number of familiar faces for Indy fans. Fan favorite Jordan Farr is now the netminder in Tampa, while Arteaga started up top for the visitors. If you factor in Nick Moon, who didn't make the trip to Indy, short-term signing Cal Jennings, and Nicky Law who was sitting on the bench as an assistant coach, the number of former players now associated with TBR is staggering. Indy love their former players, but #IndyForever doesn't apply for the 90-minutes of game time. Though, once the game is over, the love returns as Farr was seen walking through the BYB line.

Before I get into the game, I want to mention some player milestones that I neglected to mention after the last game against Loudoun. With his 90-minutes against LDN, Aedan Stanley surpassed the 10,000 regular season mark for his career in the USL. With his appearance in the LDN game, Cam Lindley reached 150 regular season appearances in the league. Elliot Collier has crept within one game of reaching the century mark in the league. If he finds his way onto the field in the upcoming game against Tulsa, he will reach the milestone. Finally, Sebastian Guenzatti is now within 2 games of reaching the 200 game threshold. Congrats to all the guys for their staying power!

Back to our regularly scheduled game article.

Indy first faced TBR early in the inaugural 2014 NASL season, playing to a 1-1 draw. Tonight's match was the 18th meeting between the two teams in the following decade of play, with Indy holding a 3W-4L-10D record against the visitors from Florida coming into the game. Interestingly, at least to me, four of those 18 games have been played in the month of July, with three of them during this weekend of the month. I was surprised to check the record stat and confirm how many times the two teams have played to a draw. The most notable, to me, was the 2-2 draw in June of the 2015 season, that saw a >2 hour rain delay, THREE Tampa Bay players ejected from the game, and a 98th minute banger from Kyle Hyland to salvage the draw. Within hours, Peter Wilt had let Coach Sommer go, moving Tim Regan into the interim coach role. 

This game didn't have the same level of draw, and also didn't end in one of the regular draws between the two teams. The early moments of this game were all within Indy's defensive half of the field as TBR came out pressing hard and pinning Indy back as a result. As the game continued, Indy began to find a bit more possession and forays into TBR's defensive third, but it was still the visitors that were dictating the game until about the 25th minute when Indy began to find more possession and attempts going forward. It was a little before that point where McAuley adjusted his 4-3-3 arrangement to bring Guenzatti back further into the midfield to try and help stabilize the Indy midfield that was being hammered by the TBR attack. Immediately after Lindley had a shot on target that went straight to Farr, TBR went down the field and had their 5th corner of the game. Hilton put the ball to the 6-yard box where Jennings put a flick header to the far netting, giving the visitors a deserved lead in the game going into the halftime locker room.

Full Time Shots

The second half was much like the first half. Both teams found some possession and both had opportunities at goal. The difference was that TBR looked like a better team on the day and found a second goal late in the game by Rivera that, much like the first goal, was deserved. Statistically the teams were fairly similar to each other, not counting the shots (18 to 8 in favor of TBR), shots on target (9 to 2 in favor of TBR), corners (12 to 4 TBR), and (obviously) goals, but TBR's efforts at Indy's goal were greater and much more frequent. 

Sulte had yet another good game, stopping 7 of the shots on target, but really couldn't do much for the two shots that found the net. He couldn't do anything but watch the Jennings flick header, and Rivera's shot on the second goal was so quick and was surrounded by so many Indy defenders that he had to have been surprised to see the ball coming to him. 

If I'm honest, the Indy players looked slower and more tired. They had a reasonable gap between games to get their legs back from their preceeding week, but they didn't look as energetic as they needed to be against an opponent sitting just ahead of them in the table. Indy has 6 players that have started at least 15 of the 19 games and all are averaging more than 75 minutes per game, with Stanley being the minutes leader having played every minute of every league game. All of those players have also started 3 of the 4 U.S. Open Cup games as well. Indy have signed a lot of players this season (36), but 7 have been sent elsewhere, 8 are Academy players, and 2 have been on extended injury leaves, leaving just 19 players to cover the bulk of realistic game minutes. That's a lot of minutes on legs as we get to the midpoint of the league season. Throw in the U.S. Open Cup run, and it's not surprising that some of the player's are starting to show periodic signs of fatigue. That's more an observation than an excuse of tonight's game, but Indy have the talet to compete with a team like Tampa Bay and they didn't do that very well tonight.

Indy return to action next Friday in an interconference clash on the road to FC Tulsa who are sitting on the wrong side of the playoff line in the Western Conference. After Indy's 9-game undefeated streak was broken by Orange County, Indy have not been able to get a win despite three of the four games being played at Carroll Stadium. No games are given in this league, but Indy would like to use the game at ONEOK Field as a "get right" game. 

The Game Beckons Game Ball

While the GBGB typically goes to a player that I keep noticing throughout the game or that has a MVP-type game. However, in the loss, I would like to give tonight's GBGB to Logan Neidlinger, the USL Academy signing who has been training well enough to not only get some looks at being on the bench, but has also found minutes at the end of the past two games. Congrats to the young man who is headed to the University of Indianapolis this fall.

Photographs - Don Thompson Photography