Opposition Report: Indy Eleven

The Fire II’s Quest for the Cup continues tomorrow when they host Indy Eleven, in one of the first ever competitive matches between an MLS Next Pro team and a side from the second-division USL Championship. To help us understand Indy Eleven, we spoke with David Ziemba, the President of Brickyard Battalion, the umbrella Supporters Group supporting Indy Eleven. (Responses have been edited for length and clarity)

Tell me a little bit about the Brickyard Battalion and its history.

The Battalion is the Supporter Group for Indy Eleven. We have group affiliates that all feed into us and we’re the overarching management of it all. We have a stand in the west end that’s all ours. We see about a thousand [supporters] every game and we rotate another two or three thousand out throughout the season, so we’re a very large part of the atmosphere in Indianapolis. We actually were around before the team: We started in 2011 and the team didn’t come until 2013.

We’ve got someone in common in Peter Wilt, who started Indy Eleven and started the FIre as well. We won a championship in NASL and eventually added one more, and were invited to join USL Championship, the top tier of USL. We are probably traditionally a mid-table side in USL.

We also have a phenomenal women’s team, and our youth academy programs are excellent as well. Overall Eleven is doing incredibly well. The men’s side, we would like to see a bit more from them, but that’ll come.

And then in two years, we’ll have Elven Park open here in Indianapolis. It’s going to be three or four blocks from the football stadium [Lucas Oil stadium, home of the NFL’s Colts] downtown and it’s going to be a 20,000 seat stadium. It’s going be incredibly impressive, and we can’t wait for it to open.

You talked about the size of support for Eleven. How many people do you think will travel up for the game? It’s a midweek match.

Yeah, it’s midweek. We were hoping for Thursday, we probably could have had a few more people. We tried to get a bus, but there weren't any available. We’re hoping between 20 and 40 people will come up.

You know, the relationship between the Chicago Fire and Indy Eleven groups has always been there from the beginning, because of Wilt and the connection that we all have. A lot of folks in Indianapolis started off as Fire fans just because of the proximity of it and, you know, we’re not big Ohio people. So we started as FIre fans growing up and there’s a lot of that connection as  well.

You mentioned Eleven being kind of a mid-table team. They made the playoffs last year after missing out the year before. What are the expectations for this season?

Well, we finally returned to the playoffs. It had been a while. We didn’t get a home match, but we saw progress on the field which was great and then we lost our manager, who was let go.

We had a phenomenal preseason where we were just plugging goals left and right and it seemed as though the new gaffer, Sean McCauley, is a great guy. HIs first managerial post. He grew up in the Manchester United organization and his style is very much that of Mr. Alex Ferguson. He talks about what he learned from Sir Alex, a lot behind the scenes. We know the players love him. We know that the theory about how to bring the game offensively is good, but there’s a lot of learning that has to happen there.

There’s a change in style and that seems to be preventing us from moving forward.

After we lost to Charleston [Battery, in their previous match], McAuley gave an interview after the game and the quote that everyone’s sharing is “when we’re good we’re really good, and when we’re bad we’re really bad,” and that seems to be kind of where we are right now.

We can score a lot but when we’re not scoring, our defense gets overburdened and we just let things in. So we allowed Louisville to score five on us on national TV [note: the match was on CBS, the first nationally-broadcast match in USL history], but we still scored three. And then against Charleston, we scored two real quick and then they came back and scored four.

We get a lot of shots on goal. We can score, it’s just our defense gets a little over-burdened and gets porous and goals seem to go against us. We’re on the right track, I just don’t know when it’s actually going to click for us. Hopefully it’s soon.

Fire fans are probably familiar with Elliot Collier who’s now on Eleven’s squad and Fire draftee Laurence Wootton was just loaned to Indianapolis for the season, but who are some other names Fire fans should look out for Wednesday?

We’ve got a starting 11 that’s pretty static at this point. Our midfield is fantastic. Like Is aid, once they figure that out, learn how to play together, and kind of hammer down their roles, I think the midfield is going to be insane.

Jack Blake is our number eight. He’s a phenomenal player, great guy, and he’s got a right foot that could kill on any team. He was one of our main scorers in preseason. He was just hitting free kicks left and right.

Tyler Gibson is a mainstay in the USL. He’s our captain. He had a previous stint in Indianapolis and this is his second one, but he’s won championships, so he’s a good guy. Our third guy is normally Aodhan Quinn, but he’s had some injuries lately, and then Cam Lindley who’s our number six, usually playing in the central role but he’s a fantastic player as well. Aodhan and him kind of switch off.

We signed the league-leading goal scorer in USL last year, Augi WIlliams who would kind of kick off our offense, and he’s been a great target forward in a central role. Sebastian Guenzatti is a great player, a wonderful passer. Usually plays on one of the wings but tracks in from the right.

What are your expectations for the game against Fire II on Wednesday?

Well, we played in preseason and I know we took that game. We were unbeaten in preseason, and like I said, we had a great showing. That was one of the open matches and fans got to come. I know the coach has said that they are expecting to put some youth people into the team every once in a while. We may start Cayden Crawford in goal. He’s an academy product and has great potential.

But as far as the score goes, we’ve had a run of bad form lately and we’re kind of on the downswing. We’ve only won one game this year and so I’m hoping that they can pull out a win at some point and hopefully it’ll be on Wednesday.

I’m really hoping that we can pulley his one out and move to the next round and hopefully get a home Open Cup game.

The Fire II face Indy Eleven on Wednesday at 7PM at SeatGeek Stadium in Bridgeview, Illinois.