King Habas, boring BFC and the rise of the underdogs

There was no pre-season of note. With wildly varied quarantine procedures and travel schedules, some coaches got just 3-4 days with their full squads before their first match. This was a season that started with no warm-up, and it was only understandable that most managers started with a cautious, let’s-try-not-to-lose approach.

When the going gets that pragmatic, nobody in the ISL can stop Antonio Habas.

The two-time winner of the competition decided not to have friendlies — “For me, the friendly matches did not have the conditions necessary for playing”– and his team, ATK Mohun Bagan looked a little rustier than most. They made the least passes and have the worst pass completion rate (60.3%) of any team in the tournament. In both their matches, they had just 32% of the possession. None of it mattered. In those two matches, Roy Krishna got four chances, scored two goals, and they won both games comfortably.

The league table doesn’t care about your style of play, and that’s why they are on top with the only 100% record this season. They will take some dislodging this year.MD. Kaif, Aritra Chatterjee, Sudip Gharami, Mirza Danish Alam, Ayan Bhattacharjee, Golam Mustafa, Kazi Junnaid Saifi, Arikta Das, Azaz Ansari, Gitimoy Basu, Avijit Singh, Purab Joshi, Ananta Saha, Pankaj Shaw, Naved Ahmed.