Quite a bit of time has gone by since we last looked at the Power Rankings, so, now the regular season has finished, it makes perfect sense to have a look over them once more to see how it all panned out. You’ll recall that when we looked at them previously, they didn’t match-up much with the league table, that was the case the first time we looked at them and more recently, as well. Now the season has finished, surely they would have more correlation to the table, wouldn’t they? I’ll let you be the judge of that…
Before we get going, for those that don’t know, Power Rankings are essentially stats which tell you everything you need to know about a side or an individual. We’re not going to run through every single stat because we’ll be here until the cows come home. Let’s start with a nice simple one…
Two out of the five shown there occupy the bottom three ISL positions which just goes to show that while possession is nine-tenths of the law, it’s what you do with the other tenth that matters most. In Delhi’s defence, they did improve a lot towards the end of the season, so it’ll be interesting to see how they get on next season and if Miguel Portugal stays. FC Goa sitting at the top of the possession table comes as no real surprise and it’s backed-up by the passing table, as well.
Shock horror. The passing table marries up perfectly with the possession table. In case you’re wondering, yes, I am being sarcastic. FC Goa being top again just reiterates that they are the easiest on the eye in the ISL. Ten points if you can guess which team the player that is top of the individual passing chart plays for…
That’s right, not the top one, but the top two play for FC Goa and it’s the two holding midfielders that are bossing the leaderboard. One of the more exciting things about this chart in comparison to some of the others we’ll go through shortly is that four out of the five players are the right side of thirty meaning that they’ll still be playing for years. Naturally, it might not be in the ISL where they play, albeit, it’ll be intriguing to follow the likes of Jahouh and Bedia, should they seek pastures new.
We’ll go from back to front now as we look at the best of the rest. They say you have to be a bit mad to play in goal and speaking as someone who played in goal briefly when I was younger, I can 100% confirm that. Years ago, I remember playing in a seven-a-side tournament in goal, we were pressing up the other end for an equaliser when one of them had a clean run on me as we had seemingly decided to play six up front and hope for the best. Any keeper that’s any good will know that in this situation, you have to make your body as big as possible and not go down until the last possible moment. What they don’t tell you is that it’s frowned upon if you start shouting at the attacker as he’s running towards you. That’s what I opted for and it worked because he knocked it out for a goal-kick! Enough about me, let’s check out the keepers that matter…
On the left, you’ll see how many saves they’ve made over the season and the one on the right is how many it works out per ninety minutes. Last year’s Golden Glove winner, Amrinder Singh sits top of the tree which is rather unexpected as I thought Subrata was a shoe-in, never mind. Again, it’s incredibly promising to see three of the keepers under thirty as it bodes very well for the future. Rachubka would have a lot more than 3.21 saves per 90 minutes if he didn’t have a shocker against FC Goa earlier in the season. Vishal Kaith will certainly be in demand in the summer and Pune will do very well to keep hold of him.
As we make our way further down the pitch to those that defend the goal and while tackles are an important part of the game, interceptions can prove just as vital. Jamshedpur had the best defensive record for the majority of the season, but their 3-0 loss at home to FC Goa on the final day meant that Bengaluru ended with the Defensive Crown Award that I’ve just invented. Tiri has been immense this season and his partnership with Andre Bikey has been up there with the very best and I’d like to think I speak on behalf of Jamshedpur fans when I say, we want to see you again next season!
Sandesh Jhingan comes in at the bottom of the top five, don’t let that fool you, though. It’s a well-known fact that no Indians have played in the English Premier League; Jhingan could. Maybe not just yet and he would probably have to start at a Championship club, it’s a definite possibility as the lad is fantastic and would be an asset to any side. It could be argued that more fouls happen in the defensive half of the pitch than the attacking half, so it seems suitable to do the fouls…
Only Chennaiyin on that list made the end of season playoffs which tells you something. I’m not too sure what it tells you, nevertheless, it tells you something. In fact, it’s all the middle of the road teams as the two teams who finished bottom, ATK and NorthEast aren’t on the list, either. Maybe it shows that if you’re average, you kick people a lot? I don’t know. Give me a break.
Midfielders had their fun early doors, so we’ll skip right to the frontmen, who rightly or wrongly, normally get the praise. We’ll begin with a game of Shots & Crosses; something that will get a few eyebrows raised, not for the first time.
Shots are as expected with the exception of Mumbai as they only scored twenty-five goals over the season, so one every ten or so shots is not great. It’s a shame they didn’t make the playoffs as I did enjoy watching the Santos brothers (I know they’re not) and I think they would’ve gone close to winning it, maybe some other time, eh? The bottom three are in the top four when it comes to crosses into the box which would suggest that it doesn’t work, credit to them for persisting with it all season.
If you take a look at your watch, you’ll see that it reads Coro o’clock because all of the remaining rankings we’re going to look at have something to do with Coro, one way or another. We’ll start with the most jaw-dropping as I’m still trying to comprehend it, it’s that good.
That there is Coro getting 73% of his shots on target which I find surreal, factually speaking, he’s the best striker in the league if you base it solely on goals and this backs that up as well as only Hume comes close to him. It would’ve been interesting if Hume was fit for the whole season, Kerala may well have made the top four. Who knows? Next up, is goal per 90 minutes, Coro doesn’t quite make top spot on this one; that place is reserved for a striker that has been on fire in recent weeks.
Delhi’s Uche can’t stop scoring and I hope he stays around for the Super Cup because I think they could surprise a few people in that and right a few wrongs from this season. Fourth-placed Robbie Keane is perhaps the one we all would’ve predicted would be on the list at the start of the season. When I say we, I’m referring to the voices in my head. One day they’ll stop. Less about me, more about the strikers; we end with the combination of goals and assists…
That man again! The fact that they’ve got Coro and Lanzarote on that list shows how good FC Goa are going forward and you’d have to be stupid not to fancy them in the playoffs as they’ve got enough up to even trouble Bengaluru. For what it’s worth, I am stupid because I think Albert Roca’s Bengaluru would have enough to beat them in a one-off game, over two legs, it would have been a different story.
We’ll call that a wrap, that’s the end of the Power Rankings for this season. Stick around, they’ll be back for the next one.
Until the next time.