MLIS's Ohio Extreme is off to a poor start for the 2024 Season.
Game I: Loss 25-2 v Grand Rapids
Game II: Loss 27-1 v Chicago
Game III: Loss 23-0 v Cleveland
Now, that's some real easy math. 3 goals scored and 75 allowed in 3 games. That's an average defeat of 25-1.
I'm not here to pile on, I have empathy for the Extreme. When I was a young man, I played on some very bad (amateur) indoor soccer teams. The difference between my teams and the Extreme? I never lost by 20+, 3 games in a row.
I mean, we are talking about SOCCER.
When I went to the Extreme's Roster list, the players looked like the actors that I made my indoor soccer film Blasphemers with.
Can the Ohio Extreme turn things around?
Uh no.
Why not?
<sigh>
I live on the edge of Cleveland. The home field of the Cleveland Crunch is about 10 minutes away. I coached kids there, it's not very big, but it IS on the edge of a million-person metropolis. There is a surplus of talent in the Cleveland area and last year the Crunch were coached by the legendary indoor player Benny Dargle.
I had to look up where the Extreme were from. Technically they are the Lima Extreme. Lima is a city of about 30,000, somewhere in the middle of nowhere between Cleveland and Indianapolis. There is no surplus of indoor soccer talent in the fields of soybeans near the Ohio/Indiana border. There are no potential upgrades over the caliber of soccer player that they currently have under contract in the Lima area.
Now on Saturday, according to their website, the Extreme are set to play the only other winless team in the league, the Colorado Bucks. If the Bucks hammer, and I mean hammer, the Extreme, that would probably kill their season only 4 games in. Because the Bucks have to travel through a snowstorm to get to the Extreme's home field, they may not make it.
Next week the Extreme travel to Cleveland, which has already beaten them once. There is a real possibility that the team folds by February.
Now you argue that the Extreme could be sent down to MLIS 2 or MLIS 3? I'm not sure if those leagues exist or if they're currently in the drawing board phase.
Last year there were 12 teams in the MLIS. Every single team that missed the playoffs either folded or went dormant.
This year, the league is only 6 teams deep. Four of the 5 teams that made the playoffs last year, plus Ohio and Colorado.
Indoor Soccer is a cruel mistress. Not only do teams come and go, but so do entire leagues. Right now MLIS isn't even playing in arenas, but in Soccer Sportplexes that only seat hundreds, instead of thousands.
Could the Ohio Extreme folding domino into the league folding?
Potentially.
How many crushing losses can the Extreme withstand before they go belly-up?