Honestly, Speas may even be an upgrade over Mares. Pretty surprised he didn't got to MLS with Minnesota.
Interesting, and not something I'd expected. He's been a quality player for a long time. But the emphasis here is on "long time"--at his advanced age (and yes, it pains me to describe his age as "advanced," given that he's younger than I am), I'm not sure how much the club can count on him.
With Ring officially back this is what the roster looks like at the moment. Jon Busch - G Keith Cardona - G Colin Falvey - D Marco Franco - D Lovel Palmer - D Nemanja Vukovic - D Brad Ring - M Don Smart - M Ben Speas - M Geraldo Torado - M Sinisa Ubiparipovic - M Justin Braun - F Eamon Zayed - F
Welcome to him. With Janicki's retirement, there was a hole to be filled. Anyone heard anything about Corey Miller?
Made two new signings, Craig Anderson and Dino Williams. If you remember, we originally signed Williams last year from Harbour View, but he picked up an injury so he never played and we ended up getting Omar Gordon instead. I'd expect Williams to be used out wide as a midfielder/winger type of player. Anderson played in the second division in Sweden last season, and seems to be an attacking midfielder type of player.
I hope Williams turns out to be better than Gordon. I recall mild disappointment when he didn't pan out last year.
Daniel Keller was brought back today, and midfielder Craig Henderson was signed. Unless my count is off I believe that puts us at 18 players.
The Keller/Henderson announcement indicates the total is 16 players. Officially. But we've all seen that Miller is back with the team so would assume his announcement could be soon too.
Added to new players today with defender Anthony Manning formerly of Portland timbers, and goalie Christian Lomeli from IU.
Manning made 17 appearances over two seasons for the USL Portland Timbers 2. According to Wikipedia, he never appeared for the main club. Not terribly inspiring. Lomeli played two years at IUPUI before moving to IUB. He seems to have had a decent senior year, though he only made seven appearances.
lomeli took the starting job from colin webb to end the season. webb had played just about every game since his sophomore year (i think) until the middle of last fall. it was weird, but coach must have thought lomeli gave us the best chance to win. lomeli seemed solid enough to me, but he didn't look better than webb from what i could tell. i really don't know why they made the change.
Looks like they signed two more players forward David Goldsmith and midfielder Tanner Thompson. Goldsmith is a Butler grad, and Thompson is an IU grad. I would assume these signings are more depth and developmental in nature. http://www.indyeleven.com/news/2017...-products-david-goldsmith-and-tanner-thompson
I would assume this is our roster for the Spring season. Jon Busch - G Keith Cardona - G Christian Lomeli - G Colin Falvey - D Marco Franco - D Lovel Palmer - D Nemanja Vukovic - D Kwame Watson-Siriboe - D Daniel Keller - D Anthony Manning - D Brad Ring - M Don Smart - M Ben Speas - M Geraldo Torado - M Sinisa Ubiparipovic - M Craig Anderson - M Dino Williams - M Craig Henderson - M Tanner Thompson - M Justin Braun - F Eamon Zayed - F David Goldsmith - F
Glad to hear. The Indy Eleven article seemed to indicate both of them have had a lot of college accolades. Hopefully it translates to the NASL.
This is good news. I'm saddened by the departure of the two Zionsville guys (especially Mares) and Lacroix; the club could use some productive youth.
http://www.indyeleven.com/news/2017/10/26/from-one-road-to-another From One Road to Another Midfielder Sinisa Ubiparipovic on a successful career at the game’s top level