Indian Super League is shooting blanks as goals come few and far between

Dileep Premachandran writes that, while total number of goals is not always indicative of quality of play, the dearth of them in the Indian Super League is telling.

Chennaiyin defender Mehrajuddin Wadoo vies for the ball with Kerala Blasters forward Kervens Belfort during a match on Saturday. Arun Sankar / AFP / October 29, 2016

You don’t necessarily need goals for a wonderful football spectacle. The celebrated Gordon Banks save off Pele came in a game that the Brazilians won 1-0. Nearly half a century later, it still makes nearly every list of great World Cup matches.

Sometimes though, the lack of goalmouth incident or good finishing can tell you a lot about the standard of the football being played. Euro 2016, despite the heroics from Iceland, Hungary and, ultimately, Portugal, will largely be remembered for depressingly mundane fare. And a month into the Indian Super League, the lack of goals has become a grim reminder of the fact that this is a competition driven by those with their best years well behind them.

On Saturday evening, as the Diwali fireworks started to go off around the country, there was a real absence of sparkle on the pitch as Chennaiyin FC, last season’s champions and Kerala Blasters, runners up in the inaugural year, played out a goalless draw. The Blasters, coached by Steve Coppell, were the better side, especially in the second half, but there was no cutting edge in front of goal.

Coppell has fixed the defensive frailties that sent them plummeting to the bottom of the table last season, but Kerala have scored a pitiful four goals in seven matches. Chennaiyin have managed seven from six.

But it’s not as though other teams have been banging them in either. Atletico de Kolkata, who top the table, have eight goals from seven matches. With the exception of Delhi Dynamos, who have also scored eight, albeit from six games, each of the other six teams has been even more goal-shy.

The most bizarre statistic comes from NorthEast United, currently in third place. Of the six goals scored in seven matches, as many as five have come from Emiliano Alfaro, the Uruguayan whose opportunism in front of goal would be familiar to Al Wasl fans.

As things stand, Alfaro has scored more than a tenth of the goals seen in the ISL this season. So far, there have been just 49 goals in 26 matches, less than two a game. Even in the first season, which saw 129 scored in 61 matches, provided a better ratio.

When Chennaiyin won last season, the goal count for the 61 games went up appreciably, to 186. Of those, Colombia’s Stiven Mendoza scored 13 for the eventual champions. He has since moved on to better things, with New York City FC in Major League Soccer.

The tournament that he left behind is shooting blanks.

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