A LONGER SEASON, change in number of Indians-foreigners on field and finally a partial recognition as an official league is what is whole different about this season’s Indian Super League.
In its three years of existence, ISL has never seen these changes and it comes as a progress from where it all began in 2014. Formerly, the ISL season was sandwiched between an on-going national team camp and a soon-to-start I-League. The time for preparations was always not quite adequate. Weather conditions and other logistics issues prompted ISL teams to head overseas for preparations for the season. This became a trend and a may be even a mandate for all teams to follow suit to take the pre-season trainings in conditions that were nothing close to the actual one in India.
Following the changes in the ISL structure this season, few teams like FC Pune City decided to not to travel and use that time in training and playing teams from the country itself. Reasons of choosing a country to have the pre-season tour in ranged from tie-ups with team’s technical partners and coaches’ relations with home country clubs. This season, for the first time, also saw a cross league face-off between the ISL and I-League teams but in preparatory matches.
With about a week to go for the season, most teams are back from tours and those still here, have finished playing most matches with the teams local and national. Let us head into a team-by-team summary of the pre-season matches undertaken by the all teams.