At the end of an eventful Indian Super League (ISL) season, dominated by a team that didn’t make the play-off final, we look back at some of the main talking points – the need for VAR, Sunil Chhetri’s slow fade and Simon Grayson’s remarkable rebuilding job.
So, the ISL season ended with ATK Mohun Bagan – now to be known as Mohun Bagan Super Giants – edging out Bengaluru in a penalty shoot-out. The teams that finished third and fourth in the regular season played out a final in Goa that wasn’t always high on quality, but one that provided plenty of incident and controversy. Here, we look back at five takeaways from a game that saw Indian football’s most famous club, in its new-ish avatar, take away the biggest prize on offer in domestic football.
- Indian football needs VAR: Revsportz will never go down the road of abusing or excessively criticising match officials. Nor will we support the kind of childishness that saw Kerala Blasters walk off the pitch in protest at a refereeing decision. But what the ISL final showed was that the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) system cannot come soon enough to Indian football. The technology isn’t cheap, but even access to basic replays will prevent the kind of mistakes that blighted this final. The referee made one stunning call, whistling for an ATK Mohun Bagan penalty after spotting a Roy Krishna handball as he went up for a header in his own box, but made two crucial mistakes later in the game. Pritam Kotal got away with a blatant hack at Krishna – the ball wasn’t even in the same pin code – and the penalty through which Bagan equalised came from a foul committed outside the box. Keeping up with the play in the kind of heat and humidity you usually get in India is an Herculean task in itself, and referees need all the help they can get to ensure that showpiece occasions aren’t marred by decisive mistakes.
- The Greek-Australian connection does it: These aren’t the greatest days for Australian football. The Viduka-Kewell-Cahill generation is firmly in the past, and the standard-bearer for the country’s football at present is a coach. Ange Postecoglou led Australia to the Asian Cup in 2015, but has earned the respect he deserves only after enjoying stunning success in Scotland with Glasgow Celtic. Unlike Postecoglou, who moved to Australia as a boy of five, Dimitri Petratos was born in Sydney. Angelo, his father, played for Sydney Olympic against Postecoglou’s beloved South Melbourne, and India is just the latest stop in an itinerant career that has also taken Petratos to Malaysia, South Korea and Saudi Arabia. Petratos accounted for 10 of the 23 goals Bagan scored this season before the final, and it was his nervelessness from the spot that clinched the trophy. Twice in the 90 minutes and then again in the shootout, he struck his spot kicks to Gurpreet Singh Sandhu’s right. Aiming for the corner of the net, not too high and not along the ground, it’s the sort of kick that always gives keepers a chance to be heroes. But such was the conviction with which Petratos struck them that Sandhu couldn’t even get a strong glove to them.
- Grayson should get the chance to build on this: Provided his sterling season of work in India hasn’t caught the eye of some desperate club owners back home in the UK, Simon Grayson should be back on the touchline with Bengaluru FC next season. Few coaches who have plied their trade in the ISL have worked with such storied clubs in the past. He couldn’t get Leeds United, the club he supported as a boy, back to the Premier League, and the stint at Sunderland – another fallen giant of English football – lasted just four months. In both cases, Grayson was a victim of circumstances, with the ownership and management of both clubs a joke at the time he was in those jobs. But just as John Gregory restored his coaching reputation by leading Chennaiyin to the ISL title in 2017-18, so Grayson will have done his resume no harm this season. The post-Christmas revival, which encompassed ten straight wins, was just stunning, and he also had the gumption to take some tough calls, like relegating Sunil Chhetri to the bench for six straight games. If they can get the recruitment right in the off-season, and keep hold of Grayson, Bengluru will be one of the few times that can hope to challenge Mumbai City FC in 2023-24.
- For now, the play-off system works best for India: No top league in the world has a play-off system to decide its champion. A ‘league’, by definition, is won by the side that shows itself to be the most consistent over the course of a long season. In 2022-23, Mumbai City were so dominant that they didn’t even lose a game until top spot was confirmed. But one poor game at home against Bengaluru at home in the play-offs, and their title hopes were ultimately dashed. Their fans will doubtless chafe at the unfairness of it all, but for now, Indian football simply can’t afford that sort of procession to the title. With the weight and resources of the City Football Group behind them, the chances are that Mumbai will dominate the league for years to come. Given that football has to jostle for space and coverage with so many other sports – cricket, way out in front, doesn’t count – it needs a competition that will keep the fans interested till the very last. The English Premier League, for example, has retained fans’ interest despite the recent dominance of Manchester City and Liverpool simply because there are sub-plots like qualifying for the European Champions League and avoiding relegation to the Championship. For now, the ISL has no relegation, and the teams are nowhere near good enough to take on Asia’s best. Till we reach that level of maturity, a play-off system that provides this kind of drama is certainly the best option.
- Captain, Leader, Legend, Curtain Call: There aren’t enough words to fully express what Chhetri has meant to Indian football over the past decade and a half. But Grayson’s ruthless decision to bench him as Bengaluru set about reviving their season suggested that the sand is now nearly all at the bottom of the timer for Indian football’s 21st-century legend. It was telling too that despite his play-off goals against Kerala Blasters and Mumbai, Chhetri started the final on the bench. But for Sivasakthi Narayan’s unfortunate early injury, he would probably have been a bit-part player. As it was, there was lots of endeavour and a couple of glimpses of quality, but by and large, the final passed him by. Chhetri will definitely have a role to play for India in the Asian Cup, even if it’s off the bench, but it’s hard to see how he’ll drag himself through a full ISL season in 2023-24. Or if he even wants to.
