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I don't want to give too much importance on top-5000, 6000 or top-10000 rankings. Sunil Chhetri has got the talent. He was born in India and not in Argentina. He is also not like a big tall European Footballer. We cant change DNA, Genes and chromosomes. But one thing for sure he has got the skill and a very good presence of mind. That's why he maintains a very good strike rate. Some of his goals are truly world class.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6c9pARwD-eU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdsoo7A4v2c
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6nCuqnUeZE

Saniapower wrote: ↑Sun Feb 25, 2018 5:40 pmHe is also not like a big tall European Footballer. We cant change DNA, Genes and chromosomes. But one thing for sure he has got the skill and a very good presence of mind. That's why he maintains a very good strike rate. Some of his goals are truly world class.

Quite correct. That last part is what comes to my mind also, often. He has scored some brilliant goals. He is a damn good scorer, and has all kinds of scoring skills and instincts. He is really quite speedy too. Just a great football player.

This is in the wrong thread. I need to move the posts.

Well, the ISL finalists are decided now, as the second leg of the home and away semifinals just got done. How about this? Chhetri versus Jeje!!!

At Bengaluru, the Bengaluru FC beat FC Pune City, 3-1 with a hat-trick by Sunil Chhetri
At Chennai, Chennaiyin FC beat FC Goa, 3-0, with 2 goals by Jeje.

Isn't that great, to see our best two strikers coming through to put their teams in the final?

Well, Jeje had the final laugh, as Chennai beat Bengaluru in the ISL final, 3-2. Sunil scored one more and Jeje had no scores.

Sunil scored the opening goal from a beautiful diving header a treat to watch.

Pretty telling, isn't it, that nobody has posted here for the past 8 months. Most of the teams have already played 10 matches in the new 2018/19 season of the ISL, and there's absolutely no interest here!
Just watched a bit of the Mumbai vs Delhi match on TV (in Singapore!). Reasonable quality, and quite exciting 4-2 win for Mumbai. Machado (who was in the Portugal national team until 2 years ago) scored one goal, and Bustos (a Brazilian who never made his national side) scored another (albeit a penalty).

The problem is that we have foreign retirees or near-retirees as the stars, and the stands are largely empty (slightly worse than the typical cricket test match these days).
Sad to see the ISL petering out so quickly...

I think it will be sucessfull because the indian footballer are giving there best and there are some good players like Sunil Chettri, Farukh Chaudhary and some more.

I've watched some of the ISL matches this year, and the quality of play is certainly far higher than any domestic Indian competition. This year, East Bengal and Mohun Bagan have entered the ISL formally -- which is a great idea, as it creates genuine enthusiasm in Kolkata when the two teams play (each other especially). I was in Kolkata on the night of the Kolkata derby, and the streets were notably empty, as everybody seemed to be home watching the big match! Most people ironically thought the match was being played in Salt Lake stadium -- rather than in Goa (the reality). I even asked around for tickets, but was told that it would be played to an empty Netaji Subhas stadium.

East Bengal have been renamed "SC East Bengal" (SC really standing for Shree Cement, majority owner of the club, but often referred to as Sporting Club East Bengal) and are coached by Robbie Fowler, the former Liverpool star striker (7th-highest goal scorer in English Premier League history) and ex-England international. But SCEB have yet to win a match, showing the vast gulf between I-League and ISL.

Mohun Bagan, on the other hand, are now called ATK Mohun Bagan, following a merger (induced by ATK, formerly Atletico de Kolkata, co-owner Sourav Ganguly) with the ISL champions of the past two seasons, ATK. The vast majority of the ATK Mohun Bagan squad comprises Indian players, with a smattering of players from the Australasian leagues (some of whom have played for Australia, New Zealand or a Pacific island internationally). The star player (also recruited from Australia) is Roy Krishna, a Fijian player of Indian origin (in fact, he claims that his ancestors were from Kolkata), who has scored in every one of ATKMB's 3 wins (in 3 matches) this year, including one of the goals in their 2-0 win over SCEB in the Kolkata Derby. Roy Krishna is 33, but is the captain of the Fiji national team -- and scored Fiji's only goal in the 2016 Olympics (against Mexico). He played for a decade in the NZ leagues -- and was one of its top goal scorers of all time -- before switching to ATK last year (when he was the joint-top scorer in the ISL, with 15 goals).

Jamshedpur beat ATK Mohun Bagan 2-1 today in a good quality match. Both goals for Jamshedpur were scored by Lithuanian international Nerijus Valskis, winner of the Golden Boot in last season's ISL (and also winner of the best player and top goal scorer awards in Lithuania's A Lyga in 2013). Peter Hartley (who was captaining Motherwell in the Scottish Premiership until last season, his third at the club, after a career playing mainly for League One, or third tier, English clubs for over a decade) marked Roy Krishna very effectively, although the latter was still able to slip in a late goal, making this the fourth consecutive match in which he has scored.

I'm wondering why there is ZERO interest in the ISL. I thought this was going to be the next great thing in Indian football, the magic elixir that would help rescue a dying sport in India. But interest in it has completely petered out here...

Very good question... I think the interest in ISL has not gone down as much in India like it has in our forum. We here seem to care a lot more about how the Indian national team does, and our interest goes up and down with that. The national team has been inactive for a year now, and so nobody is paying attention to football, it seems. I am keeping an eye on what is going on, though.

Actually there is a lot of interest in the ISL in India -- or at least in Kolkata, where I am currently, possibly because Mohun Bagan and East Bengal are nominally in the ISL again. Frankly this should have been the model all along -- the ISL as an enhanced version of the old Durand and Rover Cups, with teams from all over India. So the I-League franchises, with existing followings, should have been encouraged to professionalise and become ISL teams. I hope this will happen to some extent in the future.
Instead, what seems to be happening is that the ISL is the pinnacle of India's football system -- and EB and MB, the two most successful I-League teams have now graduated to the ISL -- while the I-League becomes the next division of Indian football. Sadly, traditional teams like Dempo, Vasco, JCT Mills (Phagwara), Salgaocar, Mafatlal, etc. have vanished altogether (or perhaps been subsumed into other I-League outfits).

Arguably Mohammedan Sporting, which has more Federation Cup wins than anyone but Dempo and Salgaocar and the Big-2 Kolkata teams and more Rovers Cup wins than even Dempo and Salgaocar should be in your list if we go by objective measures. They should have a reasonable fan base too especially these days. Rovers is now extinct unfortunately as is JCT, gone the way of the erstwhile Hyderabad Police, which was supposedly great before our times. BSF was another Punjab-based team that was great when we were growing up but got relegated in the National Football League in the 2000s if I recall correctly.

In the last couple of decades perhaps Mahindra would also make the list but that club has also been disbanded now. I remember Henry Menezes, who was possibly PKB-aged, who played for Mafatlal and then Mahindra when we were young and was also in some club administration for quite some time.

Perhaps the way they did it by merging Mohun Bagan with ATK should be the model?

Yes, the perfect model would be a merger of the ATK-Mohun Bagan variety -- which, incidentally, was engineered by Sourav Ganguly (the guy really seems to have a golden touch).

Watched the ATKMB-Hyderabad match yesterday. No goal for Roy Krishna yesterday -- the first time in 5 matches this season that he has failed to score. Manvir scored the first goal for ATKMB, a pretty good solo effort getting past several defenders and beating the goalie. He was unfortunately also responsible for the foul inside the MB D that resulted in a penalty for Hyderabad, for whom Joao Victor (a Brazilian who has played for 5 seasons for Mallorca, 3 in La Liga and 2 in Segundo Division, followed by 4 years with a Cypriot first division club) slotted in the penalty. And it ended in a 1-1 draw.

Most of the foreign players in the ISL are from second or third division clubs in the top European countries, or the top division in football-stragglers. The players from Australasia are from the top tier there. Basically the quality of ISL play is like second or third tier football in England, France, Germany, Italy, Spain. A little depressing, but the professionalisation is good.

The basic problem with the ISL, I think, is that it is only played over a few months in the year. What do the players do the rest of the year? Train, I presume, but it's boring to be training for so long for such a short season...