WHO:
Indianapolis Eleven, only eleven, not ten, and not twelve. Eleven. The NASL squad finished their Fall season 11-4-7 with 37 points and qualified for the NASL playoffs by virtue of having won the Spring Season and total points. They would make the NASL finals and lose on a penalty shootout to New York Cosmos.
WHAT:
Louisville City’s last preseason friendly before the REAL USL SEASON STARTS NEXT WEEK!!!1!!1!
WHEN:
Saturday, March 18, 2017, 6:00 p.m. EDT
WHERE:
Arad McCutchan Stadium, University of Evansville, 1800 Lincoln Avenue, Evansville, Indiana 47714. I’d make jokes about how it’s surrounded by fences, but the Purple Aces have a stadium and we don’t, so…
WATCH:
Live and in person, amigos y amigas. The Coopers are meeting Indy’s Brickyard Battalion, Slaughterhouse 19, AO Evansville and others over at RiRa’s in Evansville at 701 NW Riverside Drive. It’ll be fun! There will be beer! There will probably be basketball on TV!
What there won’t be is a broadcast for this one. We’ll have a recap of some form or fashion ready to go on Sunday morning so you can peruse it while yelling at Chuck Todd and his guests in your bathrobe. At least that’s what I’ll be doing.
WHO, AGAIN?
Indy Ten Eleven. The Nine Eleven are coming off their best season yet, having won the Spring championship in NASL last year and finished second in the Fall round. As I said before, they won their opening playoff game against FC Edmonton and played THE LEGENDARY NEW YORK COSMOS to a 0-0 draw before succumbing on penalty kicks 4-2. They beat us in the US Open Cup last season, too. That was not one of City’s better games.
Indy got started as a club a year before we did, but hadn’t had much on-field success until this past season. They do, however, have a very good following at Mike Carroll Stadium at IUPUI, drawing about 10,000 fans per match. Their all-time leading scorer, Libyan national Eamon Zayed, returns to the squad this year with 15 goals to his name. That’s not a lot! The Eleven’s 2017 roster has a few recognizeable names on it. It includes Jon Busch (one of my favorite keepers ever), MLS journeyman Justin Braun, Ben Speas, Jamaican international Lovel Palmer, and Brad Ring. Lots of MLS experience on that roster.
After hiring a name coach in Jurgen Sommer to start out, Indy has finally settled in with Tim Hankinson, who led them to their successes last season. Hankinson has coached literally everywhere, and would probably be a fun guy to have a beer with except I’m not sure the guy smiles ever. Very important metric in soccer coach evaluation, smiling.
FEARLESS PREDICTIONS:
Goals will be scored, beers will be drank, insults will be hurled, friends will be made. This is a good tuneup for City going into the season, but again, IT’S PRESEASON. Let’s not take too much from the results, but pay closer attention to how the Purple play. Then GET HYPED for next week, because it’s time to make Preki remember why he disappeared for 18 months.
COME ON, CITY!
