WHO:
Indy Eleven, 3-5-0, 2nd place NASL. This is their first appearance in this year’s US Open Cup; their USOC record is 1-2, thanks in part to a certain purple team you might have heard of.
WHAT:
Louisville City’s third round US Open Cup matchup.
WHEN:
Wednesday, June 1, 2016, 7:30 p.m.
WHERE:
Michael A. Carroll Track & Soccer Stadium on the campus of Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI, or as my dad likes to pronounce it, “Ooey-Pooey”).
WATCH:
Indy’s not doing a stream. They’ve politely asked us not to try and do one, either. Super lame. Soooo, if you aren’t going (and you should probably go), be on the lookout for random Periscope streams or something on the eBays; we’ll be tweeting out any info we can find.
WHO, AGAIN?
Thanks again to Kevin Kernen, who’s back in the saddle and managed to put together this game preview for us:
Well Lou City fans, here we are again on the day of another US Open Cup match, this time against our neighbors to the north, Indy XI. The boys in Purple take to the pitch against a much-improved XI side that we squared off against in the same round last year. Most of us know that we won that one in extra time thanks to goals from Nate Polak and Orlando City loanee Sidney Rivera.
But that was then, and this is now. Last season Indy XI limped home to an 8-9- 13 combined record and 9th in the 11 team league (remember, NASL has those silly Spring/Fall seasons, which mostly fall in the summer). This year they are undefeated in 8 matches in NASL play, and second in the table behind perennial powerhouse New York Cosmos. They’re 3-0-2 in their last 5 and have beaten frontrunners NY Cosmos and Minnesota United already this season. On top of that, they regularly see crowds of 9,000+, although it’ll be much thinner than that tonight. They have a decent attack and defense, scoring 11 and conceding 7 on the year. They don’t have any huge threats on offense, but the scoring has been evenly spread, with 7 different goal scorers.
The Open Cup match on May 27 th of last season is the only competitive match between these two teams, but LCFC has beaten Indy XI in their 2015 and 2016 preseason friendly matchups. So we’re 3-0 against ’em, and with Lou City unbeaten in their last 10 this game promises to be entertaining at the very least. Also, since Indy’s home colors are blue on white, I presume we’ll be in the alternate-cum-away hooped jerseys, which we are undefeated in.
