Okay, so there was a question asked last week about how the ISL teams would do in the AFC Champions League and whether they would qualify for the group stage of the competition. Immediately a lot of us said no but lets revisit this question using the two finalists for the ISL, Kerala Blasters and Atletico de Kolkata.
So, the average ISL squad consists of 5 Indians and 6 foreigners and a mix on the bench while in the Champions League we would see the 3+1 rule being activated with practically an all domestic bench.
Now, the Kerala Blasters played the following team in their last match against Chennaiyin. In a AFC Champions League match I would guess that we would see Jamie McAllister and Pulga benched automatically with Andrew Barisic replacing Michael Chopra (Asian reasons) and Hengbert replacing Falvey. So based on this, this would be their AFC Champions League line-up:
Ishfaq Ahmed - Stephen Pearson - Milagres Gonsalves
Iain Hume - Andrew Barisic
That is honestly not a bad side (East Bengal on sterroids). Could they defeat Johor? They could just about get past them (my opinion) but could they then defeat Bangkok Glass? I am sorry to say that that would probably be the end of their journey. Kerala Blasters could perhaps pull off a good game but their Indians would let them down and their lack of a good Asian player would also work against them.
Now then... Atletico de Kolkata. They played this side against FC Goa. Now, early on, you can take out Apoula Edel and replace him with Subhasish Roy Chowdhury but then the rest of the side is pretty much rubbish if you take out the foreigners. There Indians are lacking big time and they do not have a single Asian player other than Islam Mamun! The defense is okay with this:
Kingshuk Debnath - Arnab Mondal - Josemi - Biswajit Saha
but the rest if pretty much foreign centered! It is hard to make a guess on how they could realistically do in the AFC Champions League as their current team in the ACL would get KILLED by Johor.
So ya... there it is. Atletico de Kolkata was pretty disappointing and Kerala Blasters were also iffy. One thing both teams had in common were their lack of good Indian players. The foreigners were good and could play with Johor and Bangkok Glass and even Beijing Guoan (who we would face if we defeated Glass) but the Indians are not good enough and that is just with the starting XI, imagine how unprepared the teams bench would be!
Next year I feel that all the best possible players -like Sunil Chhetri, Robin will be playing in ISL and the quality of Indian players will improve. We may even see some AIFF Academy kids in near future for ISL teams.
Hopefully. I am hoping that now, due to the teams being able to sign their own players, we will see the better Indians signed. How I would have loved to replace Ishfaq Ahmed or Milagres Gonsalves in the Kerala Blasters line-up with someone like Victorino Fernandes.
I would have Anwar Ali ahead of Gurwinder Singh. Narayan Das? Oh lord help us... okay domestic player but really for the national team? Meanwhile I am hoping that Gurpreet Singh Sandhu can one day step up for Staebek. Also Mandar is not ready yet to be a starting winger.
Comments
Jhingan - Gurwinder - Arnab - Narayan
(Adil) - (Anwar) - (Augustine) - (Gurung)
Romeo - Khabra - Lenny - Mandar
(Baljit) - (Denson) - (Mehtab) - (Victorino)
Chettri - Jeje
(Dawson) - (Robin)
Karanjit
Sandesh-Anwar/Anas-Arnab-Rino
(Gurwinder) (Narayan)
Khabra
Romeo-Chhetri-Lobo
Robin-JEJE
subs -Mangi,Mehtab
Narayan has been great in ISL. Wonder why you are so much against him. What is ur option in left back and left wing then??
Mangi,Mehtab,Boithang,Len,Lenny,Dhana