The 2026 Indian Super League season is finally upon us, after interminable delays, court orders, interventions from the Sports Ministry, social media pleas, and more chaos.
Around 300 days after the end of the 2024-25 season, India's top-flight will return, and with it, plenty of talking points as well; both on and off the pitch.
Here are the narratives to look forward to in ISL 2026:
How will Sunil Chhetri ride off into sunset?
In many quarters this is widely acknowledged as Sunil Chhetri's last-ever season as a professional footballer. The Indian GOAT defied age and expectations with a productive 2024-25 season, becoming the top-scoring Indian in the league as well as chipping in with his trademark late winners.
Channelling his inner 'King Kazu', Chhetri seems to be aging like a fine wine. However, with Bengaluru FC limiting themselves to just the two foreigners, the onus will be firmly on Chhetri, as opposed to his stellar supporting act last season. Despite a truncated schedule, the fixtures are packed tight, and it'll prove quite the test for Chhetri's 41-year-old body.
There isn't a more motivated footballer in the ISL, however, and if Chhetri continues to keep pace with his younger teammates in the physical metrics, the goals will come. A trophy would cap off the perfect goodbye for his beloved Bengaluru FC, but as we saw with the national team, sometimes even legends don't get their fairy tale endings.
Will Kerala Blasters ever win a trophy?
You can put the brickbats away Blasters fans - as a neutral, even I'm rooting for you. As much as the Mohun Bagan faithful would disagree, there isn't a better-supported club in India. Kolkata derbies apart, Bagan's games often play out to a plethora of empty seats - and this is a club that usually wins.
The long-suffering Blasters fans have endured some torrid years, but you can guarantee that the JLN stadium in Kochi will be packed to the rafters in most games. 12 seasons into the ISL, however, they are still without a trophy - a paltry return for a club so beloved. They've come close in the past, a penalty shootout away even, but fate has always conspired against them.
So, is this the year? RCB have ended a trophy drought, Tottenham Hotspur even, so why can't the Blasters fans dream? Logic would have you dictate that a club whose CEO admitted they came close to shutting down would have no hope. Even their squad, filled with foreign players who can't even boast of a Wikipedia page or YouTube sizzle reels, doesn't inspire hope. The fans have watched promising local lads come through the ranks and move on to other clubs.
And yet... why not dream? The season is 13 games long. The Blasters will play mostly at home. A purple patch, an xG overperformance and suddenly a trophy will be in sight. There isn't even a final to wilt under pressure in or walk away from. So dream, Manjapadda, that yellow may finally turn gold.
Will we finally get a #9 Indian striker?
It's been a bugbear of almost every Indian national team coach since Sunil Chhetri approached his retirement. Where are the number 9s?!
Flittering their careers away, for one. Suhail Bhat is perhaps India's best traditional striking prospect, but he's behind the pecking order in a Mohun Bagan squad that boasts of Jason Cummings, Jamie MacLaren, and even Manvir Singh. The odds of him earning a start in a 13-game season are next to none. Now one cannot begrudge an Indian footballer for staying with the financial guarantees that come with playing for Bagan, but surely this was the time to plead for a loan move?
Most ISL clubs cannot afford the wages of foreign central strikers this season, and looking through the lineups, one can't help but feel that this is the year a central striking prospect breaks through. It won't be Bhat, but will the likes of Parthib Gogoi, Rahim Ali, Farukh Choudhary and perhaps even Manvir Singh (the Punjab one), blossom once they get regular game time as a centre-forward week in, week out?
The ISL also now boasts of four Indian head coaches calling the shots, so perhaps Khalid Jamil will finally get the striker the national team has so desperately needed the past few years. It's now or never, in many ways.
Who can stop the Bagan juggernaut?
No one.
... or Bagan themselves.
Bagan's squad is the best in the ISL in normal years, but in this season where other clubs have struggled to retain foreigners, they are ahead by leaps and bounds. Anything less than a romp to the title would be failure.
Nonetheless, there is some hope for the likes of FC Goa, Bengaluru FC, East Bengal, Mumbai City and co. Bagan were slow starters last season and took their time to find their winning formula under Jose Molina. Sergio Lobera has now come in, but he brings along a very different style of football that this squad of champions is not used to. Egos may rear their head, Lobera is no shrinking violet himself, and a bad start could snowball into something worse.
The season is only 13 games long, and if Bagan take their time to reach a winning place, it might be too late. It's what aids FC Goa's prospects too - Manolo Marquez has been with a Goan side playing and training for an AFC CL2 campaign, and they are perhaps the most prepared going into the season, despite a squad of mostly Indian players. His underwhelming time with the national team apart, Marquez has always platformed Indian talent well (and brought them up to speed quickly), so the ISL trophy is there for the taking.
Will Ryan Williams regret his choice?
It's not specifically about him choosing his Indian passport over an Australian one, but rather about the unintended consequences.
Despite his high intensity style, Williams has mostly flown under the radar with his performances for Bengaluru FC. Let me qualify that - it's not that he's been bad, but he's lived up to the expectations of a foreign player coming in and used as a rotational option.
Now, he's India's great big hope for the national team. The spotlight is firmly on him, and with added responsibility in BFC's squad this season, Williams will experience pressure like never before. Middling performances will be scrutinised, every failed cross put under the scanner. The leeway he previously had is gone... will it all be worth it in the end?
Can FanCode pull off the broadcast?
If the stream that is piped to screens across India isn't the usual quality of ISL seasons past, please don't be quick to point fingers at FanCode. The production company that is handling matters has not covered themselves with glory in their coverage of the I-League, Indian Women's League and other domestic football tournaments in the past, and despite promises of increased cameras / investment, let's not expect miracles.
FanCode's responsibility is the stability of the world feed provided by the production company, and well-placed sources indicate that it is a shoestring operation in comparison to last season. Money tells in the end, and the ISL's previous big budget production will always seem better in comparison. One only hopes that it's not a return to the I-League / National Football League type of coverage.
It's a new era for Indian football broadcasting, arguably one with more realistic monetary figures involved and not the bubble of the past. Expectations ought to be firmly tempered.
Will refereeing standards improve?
I'm not holding my breath, to be honest. While the footballers survived the lack of football these past few months, referees in India, far more underpaid in comparison, were left to fend for themselves in lower-paying competitions.
They've either had months of no action or refereeing inconsequential games. Rustiness is sure to rear its head, and we could see some poor decisions right from the offing. The refereeing in India left plenty to be desired, but before being too harsh on them, remember that the system let them down too.
Grandiose visions of VAR-lite haven't materialised, so at this point let's hope for the bare minimum. The refereeing will be poor, but hopefully universally poor so that decisions balance themselves out.
The spectre of relegation
The interim managing committee of the ISL has pulled off a blinder really. They've been done away with on the eve of the ISL, but not before they pushed through a relegation clause.
Naturally, the clubs are up in arms at the prospect of relegation, especially since it could spell financial death for a club (or so they claim). Yet, there's a bit of short-term thinking from the clubs here. What relegation does is make almost every game a consequential one. Most seasons of the ISL past have been filled with dead rubbers with clubs not in the playoff race just sleepwalking to the end. It makes for a terrible television product.
Relegation introduces jeopardy, where even teams having poor seasons have some interest left, some skin in the game. 13th vs 14th would have never mattered, heck never even existed in ISL season's past, but now holds utmost importance. A literal matter of life or death - and that makes the ISL an exciting one.
Let's play.