Kevin Johnston

IndyStar correspondent

The Indy Eleven have crunched the numbers ahead of Saturday’s North American Soccer League spring season finale at Carroll Stadium against the Carolina RailHawks; they’ve gone through the tiebreak scenarios. It’s moments like these throughout Indy coach Tim Hankinson’s career that surely contributed to his trademark radiant silver hair.

Indy sits three points – just one win – behind the first-place New York Cosmos, whose 10-game spring season has ended. But here’s the kicker: Indy will also have to win by at least three goals while tallying at least four in order to trump New York in the goal differential and total goals tiebreakers, respectively.

Compounding matters is the fact that two other teams, the Tampa Bay Rowdies and Fort Lauderdale Strikers, are tied with Indy in the spring standings with 15 points. And three other clubs are within two points of Indy. All five teams on the Eleven’s heels also play one final spring match with an opportunity to gain points on the Cosmos.

In other words, Hankinson faces a peculiar quandary.

He could elect to roll out a heavily offensive formation to shoot for the spring title, but such a decision might leave the back line exposed. A setback against Carolina could send Indy spiraling from second place down to the middle of the table in the 11-team NASL.

Or, Hankinson could forget about the tiebreakers, apply his normal philosophy to the match and just hope to come away with three points. This less-sexy-but-wiser option could position Indy nicely for the fall season with 18 points at the break if they can muster a win.

The Eleven also made headlines this week with the signing of 37-year-old Mexican international Gerardo Torrado, who has spent the past 11 seasons with Cruz Azul of Liga MX.

Torrado can’t play in a meaningful game until the July transfer window opens, but the central midfielder confirmed that he will be at the Carolina match to support his teammates. He stopped short of making a prediction.

“I don’t know much about the team we’re playing against, but anything can happen in a soccer game,” Torrado said.

After finishing its NASL spring slate Saturday, Indy will head north to play Major League Soccer’s Chicago Fire in the fourth round of the U.S. Open Cup on Wednesday.