Jamshedpur FC joins the ISL Bandwagon, football leaves a mark in Jharkhand It was a full house at the JRD Tata Sports Complex, Jamshedpur, as the home team Jamshedpur FC took on FC Goa in the second last, and the most exciting league game. But this wasn’t the only time with a packed stadium, the debut season for Jamshedpur FC has seen full house in all of the eight games that the team played in the steel capital of the country. The iconic JRD Tata Sports Complex, Jamshedpur (Photo: ISL) It was an historic day when the team played its first match in Jamshedpur, a city whose foundations were laid by a visionary, who went on to build one of the largest and the most successful conglomerates of the world. And with Jamshedpur FC, TATAs ventured into the ever-growing professional football arena. However, at no point we can call it as the first step of the TATA’s into Indian Football. The existence of the Tata Football Academy (TFA), which again is located in Jams...

After a hectic two and a half months of exciting and tedious football action, the second season of the Indian Super League (ISL) finally came to an end on 20 th December. For part time football journalist like me, the end of such a short yet packed league leaves a void in my day to day functioning. With matches being played six days a week, following the league and covering it was one challenging job. You miss a match, the tables turn around. There has been a persistent complain that ISL is designed to be very hectic with back to back scheduling of matches. According to coaches it takes a huge toll on the players to perform consistently and hence makes them prone to injuries. Also as a coach, you have to rotate your players due to fatigue related reasons and thus killing the winning momentum. This complain about the duration of the league is a crucial one. On one hand football purists and coaches are asking for longer league if ISL is to create any impact on Indian footb...