Mumbai: The Indian Super League going by it’s name has attempted in making the three months tournament into a five months short-term League. But while a full fledged league seems to be a bridge quite far ahead of the franchise based tournament, it has nonetheless found support in one of it’s undisputed hero. Iain Hume who has been it’s part ever since it’s inception in 2014 and he claimed that ‘the ISL is not a tournament anymore but a league.’
“First season you are playing 14 games in three months, you are not getting enough rest. Now they have extended the league, so the coverage gets better, that leads back to infrastructure. It’s not a tournament now, it’s a league. The first three years were a tournament, now it has turned into a league and what I am guessing and what I believe, that they are going to extend it till it is an eight-month long league. More teams and a longer league mean that the league will become more and more established,” said Hume at an media event of the ISL on Friday.
The extension of the league has worked wonders, attracting top coaches and big players in huge numbers to come and ply their trade in India and FC Goa midfielder Bruno Pinheiro, who returned after a gap of two years, deemed the longer duration of the league as the primary reason for his return.
“One of the main reasons for me agreeing to come back is the extension of the league. The biggest advantage of this is for the players, who need time to recover and a longer season means better performances,” said the Portuguese.
Alexandre Guimarães, the only ISL coach to be retained from last season was also impressed with the extension of the league and added that a longer league will help the coaches impart their philosophies in the team which will improve Indian football in the long run.
ATK coach Teddy Sheringham the other day had spoken of English model going through a transition and Chennaiyin FC coach John Gregory another Englishman emphasised on the same. “The general opinion attached to English managers is that they will play the long ball. But I want my team to play proper football. There will be no shunting of the ball to the forward from behind. We want to keep the ball and and play with style,” he said.
Former Barcelona assistant Albert Roca however wants his team to play the Barcelona way. In his one stint with Bengaluru FC he has already developed his team to play a more possession based football and Roca insists that his team will carry on playing the same.