Greater focus on Indians in new ISL season

A new season of the Indian Super League (ISL) begins on Friday, one that will be the most Indian of all eight iterations of the competition that is now the country’s most important football event.

In Khalid Jamil, there will be an Indian head coach— a first since ISL began as a two-month tournament in 2014—after NorthEast United (NEUFC) decided that the Mumbaikar deserved more than an interim position for guiding them to the semi-finals last term. Five of the six teams have named an Indian as captain or, if they have decided to have multiple skippers, kept one as an option. In the storied rivalry of Kolkata’s two clubs, Arindam Bhattacharya will be the first to have got the armband at SC East Bengal in the season he moved from ATK Mohun Bagan (ATKMB). The number of development players (those born on or after January 1, 2000) on the roster too has been upped to four with at least two needed in match day squads, exactly double of what it was in 2020-21.

Why Stimac is happy

And there will be seven Indians on the pitch, always. ISL began with teams allowed six foreigners in the playing 11. It was pruned to five in 2017-18 when the league expanded to 10 teams but 2021-22 is when it is being brought in line with Asian Football Confederation (AFC) regulations which follows the 3+1 rule on imports with one player compulsorily being from Asia. “Time for Indian players to step up,” said Brandon Fernandes, the India and FC Goa attacking midfielder.

How this rule impacts coaches—from 36-year-old newbie Des Buckingham at reigning champions Mumbai City FC to Antonio Lopez Habas, who is 64, and with ATKMB—will be the thing to watch this season. Habas will not need reminding that his worst night with an Indian team came with four foreigners in the AFC Cup inter-zonal semi-final where ATK Mohun Bagan lost 0-6 to FC Nasaf.

“This will mean I can see more youngsters,” said India head coach Igor Stimac over the phone from Split, Croatia. “Last year, Hyderabad FC often played with three or four foreigners and it didn’t hurt them at all. I am looking forward to ISL clubs trusting the quality of Indian players and here’s wishing the clubs and players a very good season.”

Also supporting the move, Marco Pezzaiuoli, the new coach at Bengaluru FC, said: “Even Sunil Chhetri was young at one time; you need to give players the chance to develop.”

This will mean more Indian players in the teams’ spine as opposed to many of them being used in the wide areas of the pitch. But given that the available pool of Indians is small due to the lack of structured youth development programmes, this is also why two of the three biggest transfers in 21-22 involved Indians. Mumbai City FC were rumoured to have paid over ₹2 crore — the maximum in ISL history — to NEUFC for 21-year-old midfielder Lalengmawia Ralte and ATKMB were said to have almost touched the ₹2 crore mark to get inverted winger Liston Colaco from Hyderabad FC.

It also explains why FC Goa zeroed in on ball-playing central defender Anwar Ali, whose heart condition had precluded him from being involved in ISL so far, and why ATKMB are said to be keen on Chinglensana Singh to fill a Sandesh Jhingan shaped hole left by the India central defender moving to Croatia. The rise in price of Indian outfield players now is similar to what happened in 2017-18 when the reduction in foreigners led to a spike in salaries of Indian goalkeepers.

This will also be the first time a player from the Reliance Foundation Young Champs, which is an off-shoot of ISL, has been named in the first team squad. Midfielder Muhammed Nemil is recovering from injury, said FC Goa coach Juan Ferrando, but proof of his ability came in the Durand Cup with a cleverly chipped goal against Jamshedpur FC. Nemil, 19, was among the nine from the first batch of the academy, set up in 2015, who got ISL contracts last season after a five-year training programme.

The recalibration of the prize purse is another first. While the total pool stays at ₹15.5 crore, the team that tops the league phase will now get ₹3.5 crore instead of ₹50 lakh. From no incentive for league winners till 2019-20, this is a course-correction whose need was pointed out by former England player Steve Coppell. “It’s one hell of an achievement. It emphasizes the fact that week in, week out you were the best,” Coppell, who has coached Kerala Blasters, Jamshedpur FC and ATK, told this paper in 2017.

So much for the things that have changed. Among those that haven’t is this being another chance for Romeo Fernandes, Anas Edathodika, Pronay Halder and Ishan Pandita and others to reboot India careers. To those names Stimac added Bipin Singh, Ashique Kuruniyan, Rowllin Borges, Lallianzual Chhangte, who missed the SAFF Championship due to illness or injury, and said: “I follow anyone with an Indian passport.”

Younger foreigners

What has also not changed is the trend of recruiting younger foreigners. “The fundamentals of BFC changed because we had to let go of Juanan, Erik Paartalu and Dimas Delgado. We wanted younger foreigners,” said Pezzaiuoli. In place of Juanan (34), Delgado (38) and Paartalu (35), they have Iranian midfielder Imran Basafa, who has played the Asian Champions League with Esteghlal, Gabonese defender Yrondu Musavu-King (both are 29) and Congolese forward Prince Ibara who is 25. Even as they hope to coax another excellent season out of 34-year-old Roy Krishna and David Williams, who is a year younger, ATKMB signed attacking midfielder Hugo Boumous, 26, on a five-year deal.

Headlining the trend of getting players from top leagues or marquee international competitions to ISL is Joni Kauko, the ATKMB midfielder, who represented Finland in Euro 2020. To that list add Daniel Chima, the SC East Bengal centre-forward who was with Norwegian top flight club Molde when Ole Gunnar Solksjaer was coach, and Greg Stewart, the Jamshedpur FC attacking player, who played for Scottish champions Rangers in 2020-21.

Also among things that haven’t changed is the 20-game season with no clarity yet on whether a reserves league will be held. “If Indians wants to make the next step for the national team we need more games for every stage. In Europe, children play over 100 games a year,” said Pezzaiuoli. Despite a lot of criteria in youth development, finance and infrastructure being exempted by AFC, SC East Bengal, Kerala Blasters and Hyderabad FC continued the trend of clubs failing licensing requirements and needing exemptions to play ISL.

Little beyond first team

And while Durand Cup champions FC Goa and Bengaluru FC have shown that it is possible to run age-specific programme during the pandemic, most clubs aren’t looking beyond the first team. Since 2017, 16 players from Goa’s development side were absorbed in the first team and over the past two years the club has sold, loaned or released 17 players it can claim to have groomed. Through 2020 and 21, Bengaluru FC maintained their reserve squad and six age-group teams.

All this could set back India’s age-specific teams under-23 and below. India beat Oman 1-0, Kyrgyz Republic on penalties and lost 0-1 to UAE in the Asian qualifiers last month. It was a creditable performance riding largely on the exposure the under-17 World Cup batch got over the years. “The under-17 World Cup was fantastic for Indian football and they were helped to mature through regular senior team experience,” said Stimac. Asked where the next set of players will come from, he said: “That’s a question for others. I can only work with what I have.”