Gameday Essentials

Tampa Bay Rowdies at Indy Eleven, Wednesday August 19 7:30 p.m. ET

The match will be available locally in the Tampa Bay Area on OneWorldSports.com

The Rowdies are also hosting an official watch party at the Rowdies Den in downtown St. Pete.

Scouting Indy

On paper Indy Eleven is an ideal opponent for the Rowdies to rebound with a positive result after leaving Fort Lauderdale with a bitter taste last week. Indy is dead last in the Fall Season standings (5 pts) and second to last in the combined standings (18 pts). Before last week’s bye the club lost four of its last five matches, with the most recent one being a 4-1 embarrassment against Ottawa.

Indy and Tampa Bay are in the same boat when it comes to goal production in the Fall Season. The two clubs are bottom of the league so far, with the Rowdies netting eight and Indy seven. They are the only clubs who have not yet reached double digit goals yet. Indy has been without leading scorer Dylan Mares after his meniscus surgery in late July and attacker Dane Richards has done little to jumpstart the offense since joining on loan from the New York Red Bulls.

The two sides are also on the bottom of defensive numbers halfway through the Fall Season. The Rowdies disappointing number of 13 goals allowed in only seven games is only one less than Indy in the same amount of games. Only San Antonio (15) and Carolina (18) have allowed more goals. Once considered one of the best keepers in the league, Kristian Nicht has looked susceptible when put under pressure by opponents. Also contributing to the defensive woes is the fact that head coach Tim Regan has also been forced to work with a shifting back line since taking over due to both suspension and injury.

What to Watch For

Remarkably, the Rowdies have somehow avoided playing on turf seven games into the Fall Season. Thomas Rongen’s squad underperformed in all three matches it played on the surface in the Spring Season. The draws in Ottawa and Indy, as well as the loss to the New York Cosmos were some of the lowlights in an otherwise positive Spring. Three games is probably too small a sample size to make any strong declarations, but it would be comforting to see the club perform at a high level on turf. Including Wednesday’s match, the Rowdies have four more to play on artificial surface. With the way the NASL playoff race is tightening up, no team can afford to write off a few games just because of the surface.

Roster management this week will be crucial for Rongen. Two of the club’s most important contributors, Marcelo Saragosa and Maicon Santos also happen to be two of the oldest outfield players on the roster. With a monumentally important match with Minnesota coming up at home on Saturday, Rongen has important decision to make on how to utilize some players. Will he rest players like Saragosa and Santos on Wednesday on the turf in preparation for Saturday? Is Omar Salgado healthy enough to start one of the matches this week? No matter what, it’s difficult to imagine Saragosa or Santos playing the full 180 minutes this week.

Forward Darwin Espinal has returned from international duty after missing the last three matches and could likely factor right back into the lineup this week given the busy schedule.

Set pieces might be the deciding factor in Wednesday’s match. Neither Indy nor Tampa Bay have been strong defending on set pieces in the Fall. Along with the two own goals on corner kicks back in July, the Rowdies have recently allowed two incredibly soft goals on free kicks in their last two matches. Indy has allowed a healthy amount of set piece goals in the Fall Season alone and is one of only two clubs that the Rowdies successfully converted a corner kick against.

If the Rowdies are converting on a corner, the man who will likely be involved is midfielder Georgi Hristov. He delivered the service on the only successful corners of the year and now has a league-leading seven assists in 15 appearances.