If you’re looking for fans of this year’s expanded USL Jägermeister Cup, which has brought every team from the USL Championship and League One together for a season-long tournament, count Indy Eleven Head Coach Sean McAuley among them.

“I really like it,” McAuley told USLChampionship.com this week. “I think it’s a great competition to join the two leagues. I think it’s an excellent addition. It gives another competition to try and win a trophy, so for teams like us who have never really won a trophy before, it gives everybody the opportunity to try and win one.”

More than a decade into their history, there has been a gap on the resume for the Boys in Blue. The side has consistently been one of the best-supported clubs in the lower divisions in the United States since their arrival in the North American Soccer League in 2014 – last year the side again ranked in the top four in USL Championship attendance – but hasn’t had the trophies to accompany it.

There was, notably, the spring season title the club earned in the NASL in 2016 under the league’s split-season format, when it went undefeated over 10 games to pip the New York Cosmos to the top spot, but the end of that campaign brought defeat in a penalty shootout in the Soccer Bowl when the title was on the line.

Since the side joined the USL Championship in 2018, there have been near-misses as well. In 2019, Indy hosted perennial rival Louisville City FC in the Eastern Conference Final only to fall in heart-wrenching fashion after extra time. Then a year ago, the side advanced to the Semifinals of the U.S. Open Cup before being eliminated by Sporting Kansas City.

That makes another trophy to strive for something that is appealing for McAuley, now in his second season at the helm in the Circle City.

“I’m excited that that stays around, I hope for a good few years,” he added. “It gives everybody the equal chance of in a knockout game to try and win, win a game to win a trophy.”

And therein lies the opportunity of the USL Jägermeister Cup, where Indy will again face League One opposition this Saturday against One Knoxville SC at its new home at Covenant Health Park.

The contest will reunite McAuley with One Knox Head Coach Ian Fuller, now in his first season as a head coach after more than a decade as an assistant in the USL Championship and Major Leaue Soccer. The two served side-by-side as assistant coaches at Minnesota United FC during Adrian Heath’s tenure, and McAuley has been impressed with the manner Fuller’s side has started its campaign.

“In terms of his ability to do the job, he’s proven already in his short start that he’s probably a natural at doing it, because he’s done really well,” said McAuley. “I’m excited to see Ian again because, like I said, he’s a really good coach, but I really enjoyed working with him because he's a really good guy, really good person.”

With Indy’s opening victory, and Knoxville having defeated USL Championship side FC Tulsa in a penalty shootout in the opening round of the group stage to pick up two points, Saturday night’s Group 3 contest figures to be pivotal to both clubs’ chances of advancing to the knockout stage.

It’s a game of consequence – a term that’s becoming popular around the USL ecosystem – in late May, of which in the future there are likely to be many more. Following the vote this spring by Championship and League One ownership groups to implement promotion and relegation in the coming years and add a new Division One league to complete a three-tier system, the league is entering uncharted territory in American professional sports.

While McAuley is all for the move, he also remains unmoved from his position that necessary safeguards must be in place to protect clubs and in particular the fans who remain crucial to the sport’s growth.

“If they’re going to go ahead with it, great,” said McAuley, “just as long as everybody gets safeguarded in terms of what the clubs are, because the clubs have got supporters, and they want to see their team.

“I wouldn’t want people to have a season where they’ve been unlucky – and it could be referees, it could be injuries, it could be anything that’s other than things on the field that don’t go for them, and we all know that luck plays a part in the sport – and if that season ends with a relegation, and some teams go, ‘Well, you know, we’re going to give it a miss next year.’ There has to be safeguarding. The clubs have to compete.”

But while nothing is a given, McAuley does have hopes for the potential of the move, and what it could offer the broader American soccer ecosystem in the years to come.

“I’m presuming that it would increase the talent pool, because there's more professional soccer teams, and they're all playing at a higher level,” he said. “Everybody’s got the opportunity to play a high level, and that’s probably going to increase the talent pool, and U.S. Soccer will get the benefit of that.”