Hey, thought I'd drop in and mention that the team finally managed to make it into the Round of 32 in the Open Cup for the first time. Yeah, it took most of MLS skipping the shebang, but at least the team finally won the road in an event that saw us lose to clubs like Mississippi Brilla.
It took forever for us to get a stadium, it turns out even after the shovels were planted, things are heating up. Could the city be backing out of the project because they aren't interested anymore... Or because Indianapolis is thinking bigger.
It just got messy: https://www.indystar.com/story/news...ans-to-bid-for-mls-expansion-team/73458916007 https://www.indystar.com/story/opin...without-ersal-ozdemir-indy-eleven/73463023007 It's hard to see how this ends without pissing off the 10k Indy 11 supporters who've supported the club for the last decade. That's obviously the core soccer support a new team will need to be successful. I would think that fans who have invested that much into Indy 11 would have a hard time jumping ship at this point... Almost like the old guys who still support the Bears or someone else instead of the new-boys-in-town Colts.
The unfortunate reality is that they're not aiming for them, they're aiming for the corporate sponsorships and potential events you can get with an outdoor stadium that Lucas Oil Stadium cannot provide, and the city looked at Keystone and the Eleven and felt they weren't going to succeed long term. I hate that it's gotten messy but I'm also seeing why it's happening. What's really going to ********ing piss me off is us tossing aside a unique identity like the Indy Eleven for something generic like Indianapolis FC.
Could be that Machiavellian Garber is using naive Hogsett to sink the Indy 11 and who knows if an MLS team will come. For many moons, MLS was good for soccer in this country. Now some bad is seeping in.
If documents were signed and agreements made and now broken, sounds like a lawsuit against the city to me. And if could be proven MLS was involved, I would add them to the lawsuit too. I agree with above post. I think the MLS is now starting to play dirty. Creating an MLS-3 league and continuing to add teams in markets where other teams have been. I like Don less and less every year. This just adds to it.
Great meeting with @SenToddYoung today while in DC. https://t.co/PGfYIihR3N— Don Garber (@thesoccerdon) May 1, 2024 I believe the senator played college soccer for the Naval Academy.