A few months ago, when the marquees listed were guys like Silvestre and Andy Cole etc Pires seemed like a great marquee to have but looking at the recent marquees... guys who were literally playing just a few months ago... Pires and Freddy seem useless.
According to TOI report, mumbai in talks with anelka or raul. If they fail to get any of these players, then they will have to go for freddie ljunberg. Freddie is their last option
while listen to FM radio last evening while back home from work , there is a sports segment that came up where ISL was discussed with a Sports jouralist, it went for around 5-7 min..i was actually pretty suprised to hear it in the news.
The journo thought that 1) ISL will be running only this year, he doesnt foresee it continuing for the next year as its not cricket IPL , one cannot duplicate IPL into ISL. 2) expects the game standards to be ok or average at best. 3) Zico , freedie and a few other famous ISL maquee players were mentioned and questioned how it will really help raise the game standards, 4) I league attendance was mentioned as a few hundreds &ISL is not expected to do too much better . 5) football is far less popular than cricket.
Ya, I disagree with this guy. On his first point, the franchises were signed on for 5-10 years! We are getting more ISL whether we like it or not. The game standards he is pretty much spot on about. The marquees however I disagree, they will not really raise the level of the game (they are only human after all) but they will raise the profile and popularity of the league which will lead to bigger interest than I-League.
All we need to do is look at Bengaluru FC and see what can happen if you run a team right with proper players... ISL is basically that but on steroids.
If the recently concluded Kabadi League is anything to go by....expect games being fixed and matches having some shady conclusions ( ie last minute goals)
Some player's at Kabadi and staff have admitted to people in the know..how the while thing was set to enable Rajasthan to play Mumbai in the finals...
Given the folks involved. ...would expect nothing less in ISL
@gaffertape, this is only expected, not a surprise. A private league ... run by the corporates with fascias of film stars ... no accountabilities ... inspired by the shady IPL ...
What to expect of it? rising football standards? ha ha.
Comments
https://www.facebook.com/keralablasters
Kerala Blasters official page
The journo thought that
1) ISL will be running only this year, he doesnt foresee it continuing for the next year as its not cricket IPL , one cannot duplicate IPL into ISL.
2) expects the game standards to be ok or average at best.
3) Zico , freedie and a few other famous ISL maquee players were mentioned and questioned how it will really help raise the game standards,
4) I league attendance was mentioned as a few hundreds &ISL is not expected to do too much better .
5) football is far less popular than cricket.
ronaldinho deal almost done?
Some player's at Kabadi and staff have admitted to people in the know..how the while thing was set to enable Rajasthan to play Mumbai in the finals...
Given the folks involved. ...would expect nothing less in ISL