So, how is the Indian Super League getting on?
It's been running since October 12th, and I'd watched a couple of games at the beginning of the season, intrigued as to how popular it would end up being, and glad of a distraction on weekday afternoons, for when working at home is going particularly slowly.
There's a list on the ISL website of all the players involved in its inaugural season, but here are some of the more notable ones:
Atletico de Kolkata
(The city hosts India's biggest game, the derby between East Bengal and Mohun Bagan, attended by India's largest crowd ever for a sporting fixture in 1997 - 131,000. Owned by Sourav Ganguly.)
Climax Lawrence (35, India)
Borja Fernandez (33, Spain) - formerly of Real Madrid (23 apps), Mallorca, Valladolid, Getafe and Deportivo. Scored a great goal in the opening fixture.
Luis Garcia (36, Spain)
Ofentse Nato (33, Botswana)
Mohammed Rafi (32, India) - I hear he has a fantastic voice.
Josemi (34, Spain)
Chennaiyin
Bojan Djordjic (32, Sweden)
Marco Materazzi (41, Italy)
Bernard Mendy (33, France)
Shilton Paul (26, India) - he's a goalkeeper.
Elano (33, Brazil) - yes, that Elano.
Mikael Silvestre (37, France)
Gennaro Bracigliano (34, France) - former Marseille #2. His official club photo was taken before he'd had time to finish brushing his teeth.
Delhi Dynamos
Alessandro Del Piero (39, Italy)
Mads Junker (33, Denmark) - 7 caps, 1 goal.
Marek Cech (38, Czech) - goalkeeper.
Morton Skoubo (33, Denmark) - another Danish striker, not very good whilst on loan at West Brom ages ago.
Goa
(Managed by Zico and owned by Virat Kohli.)
Robert Pires (40, France)
Andre Santos (31, Brazil) - only joined Arsenal in 2011.
FC Pune City
David Trezeguet (37, France) - spent a bit of time at River Plate after finishing his European career, so may be one of the more useful of the European vets.
Konstantinos Katsouranis (35, Greece)
Adrian Mutu (35, Romania)
Kerala Blasters
(Owned by Sachin Tendulkar.)
David James (44, England) - player/manager.
James McAllister (36, Scotland) - formerly of Bristol City, PNE and Yeovil.
Colin Falvey (29, Ireland) - has played in England, Ireland, New Zealand and the USA.
Penn Orji (23, Nigeria)
Michael Chopra (30, England)
Iain Hume (30, Canada)
Mumbai City
(Managed by Peter Reid.)
Nicolas Anelka (35, France)
Manuel Friedrich (35, Germany)
Andre Moritz (28, Brazil)
Fredrik Ljungberg (37, Sweden)
NorthEast United
(Based in Guwahati, Assam, with a squad based upon that of Shillong Lajong in the I-League. Managed by Rickie Herbert, who I think is famous for previously having managed New Zealand, but I'm not going to check that as this has already taken far too much of my time.)
Seiminlen Doungel (20, India) - almost has a great name.
Joan Capdevila (36, Spain)
Cornell Glen (34, Trinidad & Tobago) - "He began at Trinidadian club FUGTOF in 1999" - before he fugtof to play in all three 2006 World Cup group stage games, and was one of their better players, too. Was playing for LA Galaxy fairly recently.
James Keene (28, England) - former Portsmouth striker, now Elfsborg's all-time European top scorer. According to the ISL site, "Keene had expressed his interest in playing for the Swedish national team, could make the cut for the Scandinavian side."
Koke (31, Spain) - no, not that one. Formerly of Marseille, Rayo Vallecano, and other clubs in Spain, Portugal, Greece, USA, Azerbaijan, Germany and Bolivia.
NorthEast United 1 - 2 Delhi Dynamos
This game began as a bottom of the table clash, though it's the sort of league where Delhi start bottom having put 4 past the league leaders Chenaiyyan earlier in the season.
It's also the sort of league where there are endless promotional 'innovations':
The most egregious being the fact that a car made by title sponsors Hero watches every game from the stands. There did seem to be a decent atmosphere in Assam, despite Del Piero not being involved, and despite Koke doing his best to waste every decent opportunity the home side had. The ISL has an average attendance of over 22,000 - the highest in Asian football, according to today's commentators.
Never mind Del Piero, today Delhi seemed content to play through Gustavo Dos Santos, who had a constant supply of balls down the right flank. He would then cut inside and strike at goal from his left foot. One time he got it right:
The very shiny Hans Mulder made it 2-0 after 14 minutes. It's his first goal of the season.
An entertaining and end-to-end first half ended with Delhi right-back Souvik Chakraborthy getting sent off for a second yellow card, and Joan Capdevila stabbing wide after a nervous goalmouth scramble.
Half-time was devoted to chuckling over Cameron Carter's ruminations on the Delhi Dynamos' badge in a recent edition of When Saturday Comes magazine's weekly email.
NorthEast United came back out intent on dominating. They even brought on English striker James Keene, to barge into people at set pieces.
Keene is busy barging into someone when Kondwani Mtonga flicks the ball past Kristof Van Hout from a corner. 2-1, and the game is all set to descend into penalty-area warfare, but a second yellow for a NorthEast player opens the game up once again. It's 10-on-10, and the pressure on the Delhi defence lets up. A bit more to-ing and fro-ing, and it ends 2-1 to the visitors.
Probably the best game I've seen in the past few days.
It's been running since October 12th, and I'd watched a couple of games at the beginning of the season, intrigued as to how popular it would end up being, and glad of a distraction on weekday afternoons, for when working at home is going particularly slowly.
There's a list on the ISL website of all the players involved in its inaugural season, but here are some of the more notable ones:
Atletico de Kolkata
(The city hosts India's biggest game, the derby between East Bengal and Mohun Bagan, attended by India's largest crowd ever for a sporting fixture in 1997 - 131,000. Owned by Sourav Ganguly.)
Climax Lawrence (35, India)
Borja Fernandez (33, Spain) - formerly of Real Madrid (23 apps), Mallorca, Valladolid, Getafe and Deportivo. Scored a great goal in the opening fixture.
Luis Garcia (36, Spain)
Ofentse Nato (33, Botswana)
Mohammed Rafi (32, India) - I hear he has a fantastic voice.
Josemi (34, Spain)
Chennaiyin
Bojan Djordjic (32, Sweden)
Marco Materazzi (41, Italy)
Bernard Mendy (33, France)
Shilton Paul (26, India) - he's a goalkeeper.
Elano (33, Brazil) - yes, that Elano.
Mikael Silvestre (37, France)
Gennaro Bracigliano (34, France) - former Marseille #2. His official club photo was taken before he'd had time to finish brushing his teeth.
Delhi Dynamos
Alessandro Del Piero (39, Italy)
Mads Junker (33, Denmark) - 7 caps, 1 goal.
Marek Cech (38, Czech) - goalkeeper.
Morton Skoubo (33, Denmark) - another Danish striker, not very good whilst on loan at West Brom ages ago.
Goa
(Managed by Zico and owned by Virat Kohli.)
Robert Pires (40, France)
Andre Santos (31, Brazil) - only joined Arsenal in 2011.
FC Pune City
David Trezeguet (37, France) - spent a bit of time at River Plate after finishing his European career, so may be one of the more useful of the European vets.
Konstantinos Katsouranis (35, Greece)
Adrian Mutu (35, Romania)
Kerala Blasters
(Owned by Sachin Tendulkar.)
David James (44, England) - player/manager.
James McAllister (36, Scotland) - formerly of Bristol City, PNE and Yeovil.
Colin Falvey (29, Ireland) - has played in England, Ireland, New Zealand and the USA.
Penn Orji (23, Nigeria)
Michael Chopra (30, England)
Iain Hume (30, Canada)
Mumbai City
(Managed by Peter Reid.)
Nicolas Anelka (35, France)
Manuel Friedrich (35, Germany)
Andre Moritz (28, Brazil)
Fredrik Ljungberg (37, Sweden)
NorthEast United
(Based in Guwahati, Assam, with a squad based upon that of Shillong Lajong in the I-League. Managed by Rickie Herbert, who I think is famous for previously having managed New Zealand, but I'm not going to check that as this has already taken far too much of my time.)
Seiminlen Doungel (20, India) - almost has a great name.
Joan Capdevila (36, Spain)
Cornell Glen (34, Trinidad & Tobago) - "He began at Trinidadian club FUGTOF in 1999" - before he fugtof to play in all three 2006 World Cup group stage games, and was one of their better players, too. Was playing for LA Galaxy fairly recently.
James Keene (28, England) - former Portsmouth striker, now Elfsborg's all-time European top scorer. According to the ISL site, "Keene had expressed his interest in playing for the Swedish national team, could make the cut for the Scandinavian side."
Koke (31, Spain) - no, not that one. Formerly of Marseille, Rayo Vallecano, and other clubs in Spain, Portugal, Greece, USA, Azerbaijan, Germany and Bolivia.
NorthEast United 1 - 2 Delhi Dynamos
It's also the sort of league where there are endless promotional 'innovations':
 |
| Match Day War! |
 |
| Koke Zero |
 |
| Gustavo Dos Santos makes a nod to the league's primary sponsors with this windscreen wiper celebration |
The very shiny Hans Mulder made it 2-0 after 14 minutes. It's his first goal of the season.
An entertaining and end-to-end first half ended with Delhi right-back Souvik Chakraborthy getting sent off for a second yellow card, and Joan Capdevila stabbing wide after a nervous goalmouth scramble.
Half-time was devoted to chuckling over Cameron Carter's ruminations on the Delhi Dynamos' badge in a recent edition of When Saturday Comes magazine's weekly email.
NorthEast United came back out intent on dominating. They even brought on English striker James Keene, to barge into people at set pieces.
 |
| Del Piero: conserving enough energy for another season? |
Probably the best game I've seen in the past few days.
No comments:
Post a Comment