WHO:
Indianapolis Eleven, 13-10-10, 49 points, 5th place Eastern Conference
WHAT:
The third regular season installment of the Louisville-Indianapolis Proximity Association Football Contest, which is not just any USL match, but kind of is in terms of how the league would categorize it.
WHEN:
Saturday, October 13, 2018, 7:30 p.m.
WHERE:
Louisville Slugger Field, 401 E. Main Street, Louisville, KY 40202
WATCH:
AT THE GAME! It’s got to be better than whatever Louisville football is doing that night. Kentucky has a bye week. Indiana doesn’t even play football. SOCCER IT IS. But if you can’t make the final regular season match of 2018 where the players will probably be wearing those sweet pink jerseys again because a duck stole all of your money, then you can watch it on WBKI 58, listen on one of the local iHeart AM radio stations, or stream it on ESPN+.
WHO, AGAIN?
This is the Louisville-Indianapolis Proximity Association Football Contest, so even if both teams had nothing to play for, they’d have everything to play for. At this point, Louisville City’s got second place locked up and are trying to prime themselves for another deep run in the playoffs. Indy, however, has a bit more to play for.
They’re currently fifth in the table on 49 points. Red Bulls II is right behind them on the same number of points, but with one less win. Nashville has 48 points and one less win. Bethlehem has an equal number of wins, but just 47 points. If Indy lose this match and any or all of New York, Nashville, or Bethlehem win, there’s a chance they could fall from fifth to eighth. They probably don’t want any of that.
Plus, of course, this is the LIPAFC, the most prestigious, important, and tradition-soaked rivalry in the history of history. Iron Bowl fans are soooo jealous of the pageantry and mutual hatred ingrained in the LIPAFC. Red Sox and Yankees fans doff their flatbill caps at the LIPAFC in respect for its history and meaningfulness. Partizan Belgrade and Red Star Belgrade ultras lower their road flares to half mast in LIPAFC’s honor. So great is the history and tradition of the LIPAFC that Pliny the Elder once described it as “flavorful” in his Naturalis Historia.
Indy enters this match without the services of Soony Saad, who’s off on international duty with Lebanon, and Nathan Lewis, who was called up to Trinidad & Tobago. They’ll still have Jack McInerney, though, who is annoying, Ayoze, and Eugene Starikov. They can score, and they can give up goals, though sometimes they don’t. They tend to play whatever style the opposition dictates, or they just sit back and wait to break on the counter, which City is rather susceptible to. They are, as Evan Floyd said earlier this week, a perfectly good team. Somewhere between fifth and eighth in the table suits them just fine. For whatever reason, they’ve managed some good results against Louisville City, which bothers me.
In an effort to rectify that, Hackworth will send out…who knows for this match. Speedy and Franno are in Jamaica (wearin’ dis hat) for the weekend. I’d wager we’ll see the usual back four, maybe with some appearances by Totsch and McMahon somewhere, Paolo and Jose Carranza in the midfield, and I don’t know who in the attacking four. Will Cam even play now that he’s broken the record? Niall, Cuatro and Ownby all played a lot on Tuesday, so I have a feeling we’ll see at least two of them on the substitutes bench tomorrow night while Ilija and probably Jonathan Lewis get to start. Or CJH will run out his usual starters minus Speedy just to add some oomph.
Either way, it’ll be epic, just as every other LIPAFC has ever been.
VAMOS MORADOS, TE AMAMOS! VAMOS A GANAR!
