The Indian Super League is tight at the top as the competition waits to resume following the AFC Asian Cup. With around half the season still to play, predicting a winner at this stage is tough.
As there is no relegation from the ISL, the teams fighting it out at the bottom of the table run no risk of losing their place in the league. With relegation coming into play in 2024/25, though, those teams struggling this season will attempt to build their form over the remainder going into next season’s competition.
As things stood going into the international break, five teams can still consider themselves contenders for the 2023/24 ISL title. Kerala Blasters lead FC Goa and Odisha FC by two points at the summit, but Goa has the advantage of two games in hand.
Odisha has played itself into contention by going nine games unbeaten, and the team’s Spanish coach, Sergio Lobera, will hope to keep this run going when the league resumes. Mumbai City, with new coach Petr Kratky at the helm, has only lost once in five matches since he took over in early December, but that was to the current log leaders. Mumbai beat the ISL defending champions ATK Mohun Bagan Super Giant recently.
Mohun Bagan has experienced a somewhat inconsistent start to its title defence in 2023/24. The most successful club in ISL history lies in fifth position, seven points off the Kerela Blasters lead. A run of three losses in a row before the break, all to teams above them in the table, changed what was a good league position into a mediocre one.
Following the consecutive poor results, Super Giant parted ways with its Spanish coach, Juan Ferrando, replacing him with another Spaniard, Antonio López, in early January. It will be López’s responsibility to get Mohun Bagan’s faltering season back on track when the ISL resumes. Fortunately for the new head coach, the team has two games in hand over Kerela Blasters, so it is still in the hunt for the title.
Top sports betting sites in India now still favour the defending champion to retain its title despite the sequence of poor recent form. With over half the season left to play, confidence is high that the talent within the squad and the addition of a new coach will work in Super Giant’s favour.
The odds offered on the top five indicate how close things are, and Odisha’s strong run of form has seen its odds narrow. Goa’s games in hand also make its second position attractive to bettors, and with an entrenched coach in Manolo Márquez leading the team, signs are positive for a sustained title challenge going forward.
At the bottom of the table, 2021/22 ISL Championship winners Hyderabad FC’s woes seem set to continue unless coach Thangboi Singto can use the transfer market to the team’s benefit. Without a win in its first 11 games, Hyderabad has to use its game in hand over newly-promoted Punjab FC to narrow the current four-point gap between them.
Punjab, in turn, despite only a single win in its first 12 games in the top tier, is only a point adrift of Jamshedpur FC in 10th and a further two behind 9th-placed Bengaluru FC. As much as it has been a testing ISL debut season for Punjab, some decent results in the second half could see the first-timers moving steadily up the table.
As tight as it is at the top of the ISL, the basement positions are not cut-and-dried either. On resumption, the Indian Super League promises to provide some exciting football until the 2023/24 season concludes.
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