#TFGtake: A tale of two teams -- lessons for ISL franchises from teams who flattered to decieve

WOULD JOSE MOURINHO last a season at Mumbai City or Kerala Blasters? It's obviously a stretch to connect a coach of his stature to ISL franchises, but it's a fun thought experiment anyway. Jose has had a disastrous season so far at Chelsea, but for all intents and purposes his job looks safe, at least for now. But would he have lasted beyond a month at either of the two aforementioned ISL franchises?

It is widely understood that in Mumbai City, it was assistant coach Oscar Bruzon who did most of the coaching. But in the middle of the campaign, he left the team. The team lost their way after that.

Kerala Blasters, who were struggling with regular losses and spending time at the bottom of the table, fired their coach Peter Taylor a month into the tournament as well. Under new coach Terry Phelan, they finished at the bottom of the table anyway.

Both franchises lost the services of one of their important players, too. For Kerala, it was Carlos Marchena, the marquee defender who was supposed to be the lynchpin of Taylor's 5-3-2 war machinery. He missed the start of the season due to injury, and when he came back, it turned out that he wasn't fit to play 90 minutes. He left after playing one match for "personal reasons."

In Mumbai City, last year's star Andre Moritz also left due to "personal reasons", which player-coach Nicolas Anelka later revealed to be 'taking off shirt in front of the chairman,' although many say he left because of a rift with Anelka. This seems to be supported by the not-so-subtle digs that Moritz has taken on the French striker on Twitter. But what's certain is that the absence of Moritz in the midfield was one of the main reasons Mumbai City's fearsome attack seemed to lose its way with the slightest departure from having Sony Norde at the left and Sunil Chhetri at number 10.

The reason we're discussing this situation, even after talking about them at length as the situations developed and evolved over the last two months, is to drive home what happened to them as a tale of caution: football is not a game of quick fixes and quick results.

In any reputed league, a new coach is given at least 3-4 months' time to settle down in the new club. And even when they are doing bad, clubs often stand by their coaches because firing them mid-season is risky, and negatively impacts the team's morale. That's why Kerala Blasters' decision to sack Taylor seems counter-productive, even though he wasn't doing so well. No coach can acclimatise to a new country and a new league after playing 1 month in it. 

And in Mumbai City the situation was even more precarious. The official appointment in the managerial post was largely a gimmick and it was a disaster waiting to happen. Team management, in their hurried quest for headlines, put together a team that was heavy on star names but led it astray by trusting its leadership on the wrong man. Would things have turned out differently if Bruzon was the head coach from the outset? It sure couldn't have been worse.

But then again, the nature of the ISL prohibits long-term thinking. The teams assemble with entirely new looks a month before the tournament starts and are expected to start firing from day one. There is almost zero continuity from between two seasons. So when you take away the time good coaches need to build on success, you have a flawed competition that doesn't fully reflect quality. 

That's why you have situations like Pune City, taking advantage of their home matches early on scoring wins over teams that had not yet settled down yet, and then dropping down the table when other teams found themselves. 

But thankfully, there are franchises who are developing their own continuity; something akin to a club culture. ATK and FC Goa have built a system around Habas and Zico. Chennaiyin are also getting there. NorthEast United, too, have an opportunity in Cesar Farias. These teams are better prepared to performed consistently over the next few seasons and will have a smoother transition into an 8-month league campaign once ISL and I-League are merged. 

But as for Mumbai City and Kerala Blasters, the new league and the long term commitment it demands will come as a shock and tear apart their managements' approach towards football as a part-time job. Unless they take some lessons from what happened this year, and pick up some of the values that real football clubs around the globe have cultivated for decades.