A Review of the 11th National Football League - Rounds 1 to 4

After the completion of 4 rounds of league matches in the ongoing 11th National League a hazy picture emerges among all the teams with a slight marginal difference in the points between all of them and this proving to be one of closest NFL's we have had so far. The favourites on paper Mohan Bagan AC have slumped to eighth position and mind you this was the same team which were crowned the Federation Cup champions only last month. Defending champions Mahindra United who were having a fairly successful run in the championship were disposed of the top spot by their defeat to Sporting Club de Goa and are presently in the second position. Sporting Club de Goa from whom much was expected made a disastrous start into the league and were lagging at the bottom of the table but their victory against Mahindra United helped them to move into seventh spot. East Bengal Club are presently in the third position after they recovered from their shock defeat against Air-India in their opening encounter. Air-India had created the first major upset of the NFL by defeating the red-and-gold and are presently in fourth position. The team to have impressed the most are Churchill Brothers SC who are presently in fifth position. This team who gained promotion to the NFL last season have put in a stupendous performance and this will be the team which will create a flutter amongst the sides in the NFL. Churchill Brothers is the only team in this NFL who have not lost a match so far. Meanwhile Bangalore's HAL, the other promoted team, is the only team who have not won a match so far and are presently languishing at the bottom of the league in 10th place. Mohammedan Sporting Club, who are just above HAL, had begun well with a victory in the inaugural match against JCT FC but slumped to the ninth position with two defeats and a draw thereafter. JCT FC, who made a poor start in their opening encounter, later on clawed their way to the sixth position. Heading the league table are former champions Dempo SC who have sneaked past Mahindra United, East Bengal and Air-India who are all on seven points but a better goal difference have put Dempo on top and this was only possible because of Dempo’s big victory against Mohammedan Sporting whom they crushed five goals without reply, which is the biggest victory so far in this league. It is too early in the league to predict who the ultimate winner will be.

One disturbing factor is the over-dependence of all the teams on foreign players. The two teams Mohammedan Sporting and HAL, who are without any foreign players, are at the bottom of the table. Another aspect of dependence on foreigners is that out of the total 49 goals scored so far 24 goals have been scored by foreigners which is nearly 50% of the goals. Ranty Martins Soleye from Dempo is the highest goalscorer with four goals to his credit and non of the Indian players have scored more than two goals so far. When JCT were crowned the National League champions during the inaugural year in 1996/97 the top scorer in the league was Baichung Bhutia and during the 2nd NFL it was Raman Vijayan; after this we have had only foreigners as the top scorers of all the NFL's that have followed.
It looks like the National League was started with improving the scoring abilities of the foreigners and if some remedy is not found for this dearth of goals by the Indian players our ranking in the FIFA World Rankings will further dip down in the near future. With plans of starting the Pro League during the next year AIFF will have to do a lot of thinking as to how best to arrest the decline of goal scoring amongst the Indian players.

All in all the second phase promises to be an exciting encounter among the teams with each and every point and goal scored will ultimately decide the winners and fate of the teams!