The long wait is finally almost over; we'll get our first look at the our new team playing in a new league at a new home. Were it not for the uniforms (and Brad Ring and Justin Braun), it would almost be like the first iteration of Indy Eleven never happened. Having only had the opportunity to watch the season opener against poor competition, I don't yet have a good sense of how this team is going to play. There certainly seems to be promise of a good partnership between McInerney and Saad. Beyond that, I'm still trying to figure out how the pieces fit together--and, indeed, the players are still acclimating to their new teammates and the demands of their new coach. This should be more of a test than last week. FC Cincinnati had a solid season last year, losing in the first round of the playoffs, and they won their opener two weeks ago. And I expect that they'll bring a sizable contingent of fans along with them. The team announced today that it was opening the entire lower bowl of Lucas Oil Stadium for the game, so ticket sales must be going well (the south end is already sold out). A big, loud, and raucous crowd would be a great way to launch Indy Eleven 2.0.
Due to popular demand, we have opened up seating all around the lower bowl for Saturday's Home Opener at @LucasOilStadium! Take note, @fccincinnati fans: the visiting team section has shifted over closer to the endline.
Disappointing first half. Indy had the better play, I thought, but squandered two superb scoring opportunities, including the PK, while FCC seized its chance.
Headed downtown for @IndyEleven tonight. Not sure if I'm more nervous today or for our inaugural game. I miss you all @The_BYB can't wait for this. pic.twitter.com/zDehScHDd2— Justin Wiese (@littlewiese) March 31, 2018
Just got back from the game. Not a great performance offensively, although I though the defense was fairly decent. The inability to hold possession for long stretches after the first 20 minutes or so bothered me more than anything. In terms of LOS, a lot of good things to say about the stadium switch. Better seat proximity to the field, better seat comfort, better ingress and egress, better parking, better lavatory facilities, and a guy sitting next to me got up to get a hot dog and returned in only 5 minutes with the hot dog. That never happened at Carrol. Volume was if anything, better I thought with the roof and seating around all sides of the field. Atmosphere was solid in my opinion. Announced attendance was 17,535. If the team can continue to get something close to that going forward, I thing LOS can work medium/long term.
I sat behind the south goal. From there I wouldn't say they were distracting, but the sidelines did muddle the ability to clearly make out the touchline locations when the ball was down on the other end of the field. The cross field hatching wasn't that noticeable from as low of an angle as the seating is at.
From my seat in the fourth row near midfield the sideline was a minor distraction, and nothing else bothered me in the slightest.
A few thoughts on tonight's home opener: The offense has yet to gel. Indy had the ball in FCC's half a fair bit, yet failed to generate much in the way of actual scoring chances (and of course failed to convert the ones that presented themselves). I thought that Saad did a better job when he came in than Speas had been doing, but the team looked disjointed the whole game. This group needs more time together. That said, the potential is clearly there. Kristian Night tweeted this evening that fans should not be distracted by the result, that this was the best Indy Eleven team yet. I'm not quite ready to go that far, but it is vastly superior to the team that took the field in the club's first two seasons. Some of that no doubt is coaching (Rennie is an experienced coach despite his youth; Sommer really didn't seem to know what he was doing), and some of it is personnel. I did come away with the feeling that this can develop into a fun team to watch. The crowd of 17,545 was announced as a sellout. As is typical of Indy Eleven, this statement reflected tickets sold rather than people actually in the stadium, as scattered empty seats could easily be seen (including the two seats directly in front of me, which I assume were unused season tickets). I had worried about the atmosphere in the cavernous stadium, but tonight at least the crowd looked great, and the atmosphere was fine. It remains to be seen what it will be like on those numerous Wednesday nights later in the season. I was farther away from the BYB than I was at Carroll, and that may account for the difference, but from my perspective the BYB seemed strangely muffled. They were up, doing their usual singing and chanting, but the noise they generated wasn't as clear or as loud as I expected. Maybe it's something about the stadium acoustics. Having actual, functioning bathrooms was great, and the blustery, damp conditions outside meant that this was a great evening to be indoors. But boy, the food is expensive (and my kids like to eat).