ISL 2016 opening day: Let's Bollywood, let's cricket, but did we football? Not quite

In 2014, Atletico de Kolkata kicked off the inaugural season of the ISL with a 3-0 win over Mumbai City FC. In 2015, ATK won the first match 3-2 away to Chennaiyin FC.

2016 didn’t have the most explosive of starts, with Katsumi Yusa’s 55th minute strike enough to give the home team, NorthEast United, the win over Kerala Blasters FC. It was far from the great games of football that the overwhelming PR machinery had promised for three months prior to kick-off, the level of play soporific, bordering on the anesthetic, at times plain unwatchable, reaching a gouge-your-eyes-out level.

The biggest criticism of ISL is that it is nothing, but a glorified retirement home. On the basis of this evidence, that comparison is flawed. Retirement homes are much more exciting.

Who needs footballers when you have Bollywood and cricket?

Before the game even began, the ISL had scored a significant own goal with their full page ads on the front covers of several newspapers.

Granted that football promotion is a delicate balancing act at the moment, with IMG-Reliance calling on the mass-pulling power of film stars and cricket players to draw the eyeballs they desired, but surely some footballers deserved to be included.

Marco Materazzi, Chennaiyin FC’s World Cup and Champions League winning defender? Nope. Diego Forlan, Golden Boot winner at the 2010 World Cup, Copa America winner and Mumbai FC striker? Nope. Naturally, Twitter had a field day with the ads.

The heat will be a factor

As the kick-off drew nearer, it seemed like more people were interested in the opening ceremony featuring Varun Dhawan, Alia Bhatt and other “who’s-who” of Bollywood rather than the match itself.

There were some, including one of India's greatest Olympic heroes, who were less than amused with this and did not mince their words.

The crowd, exceeding 27,000 had packed into the Indira Gandhi Athletic Stadium and had been raucous from the start, cheering their team on but had gone a bit silent towards the end.

The players themselves had started pulling up towards the end and for some of the foreign players; it had been an uphill struggle, not just with the opposition but with the unfamiliar Indian heat.

The ISL should really consider introducing a drinks break to combat the sweltering heat. Witnessing the condition of the players, if this was the case at the start of the season, it will just get worse towards the end of the league.

Poor start to the league

It’s not really fair to gauge the league by one match, but on the evidence of this match, there was nothing much to get excited about. The first half was horrendous, with no passing play to be witnessed whatsoever, coupled with the fact that both teams made elementary, schoolboy errors.

While NorthEast did manage to create some chances of note, Kerala offered absolutely nothing in attack, before or after the break. The away team had a grand total of zero shots on target during the match.

Kerala’s squad selection has to be questioned at this point. With Rino Anto the only specialist full-back in the squad missing out due to commitments with Bengaluru FC, Steve Coppell was forced to field a 3-4-3 formation with Sandesh Jhingan, Cedric Hengbart and captain Aaron Hughes tasked with keeping the NorthEast attackers at bay.

Jhingan, playing on the right side of the three, struggled while dealing with Argentine Nico Velez and even with Ishfaq Ahmed dropping deep to make it a back four, Kerala struggled to handle the lively Velez and Halicharan Narzary who toyed with Ahmed all night along, going past him on most occasions.

Ultimately, it was left to Yusa, an I-league midfielder with Mohun Bagan, who showed the desire and the hunger all night long, to score the winning goal. Velez, on one of his trademark runs, ran past Jhingan who got a foot to it taking the ball away from Hengbart and Ishfaq, only for the onrushing Yusa to prod it home.

Coppell brought on Michael Chopra and Duckens Nazon to try and break the deadlock as NorthEast keeper Subrata Paul tried to help the away team with his poor decision making, on one occasion charging out to get the ball while missing it completely, only for Kervens Belfort to shoot it wide of the gaping goal.

Nelo Vingada will be happy with his team winning their opening game in a manner which was not convincing but just had enough to get the job done on the day. They stay in Guwahati for their next match, playing FC Goa next in three days’ time while Kerala return to Kochi to play the formidable Atletico de Kolkata.

It is too early to speculate on the tournament’s impact, but on the evidence of this, both teams and the organisers will have to pull their socks up for the 60 matches to come.