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The Indian Super League kicked off last week with much fanfare. Like the Indian Premier League cricket, the IPL, the new football league hopes to attract big crowdsA to fill stadia. Famous ex-players, like ZicoA andA Peter Reid have joined the league as team managers to raise itsA profile, but players like Alessandro Del Piero,A Robert Pirès, Swedena€™s Freddie Ljungberg and Luis GarcÃa may be bigger draws. This week, we take a look at this league in numbers. You can listen to the report by clicking on the link above and can read the transcript of the report (below) where you will also find explanations of key vocabulary (in bold).8
This is the number of teams, or franchises, there are in the league. Three, Mumbai City, Pune City and Goa, are based on the west coast, two, Kerela Blasters and Chennaitin, in the south, two in the north east, Atlético de Kolkata and North East United, and finally one, Delhi Dynamos, in the capital. The names areA a curious hybrid of traditional English team monikers like City and United, a latin influence withA Atlético, and American hype, such as Dynamos and Blasters.
3
The number of months the season runs, from October to December.
32,000
After four games, the average attendance has been around 32,000. This is quite healthy, but when you compare the 65.000 who sawA Atlético de Kolkata to the 16,500 spectators at the Delhi Dynamos game, there is clearly going to a big variation.
0
This is the number of teams that will be relegated and promoted.A As the teams are franchised, there will be no relegation dogfightsA in this league. It’s also the number of Indian managers and also the number of Indian captains.
14
To try to and reach out to the regular Indian fans, each team must have 14 Indian players in its squad, along with 4 local boys. The rest of the team must contain 7 overseas players, including 1 ‘star’.
49
The ISL has a draft system based on American sports. This means that each team takes turnsA picking players. There are 49 foreign players this season.
61
The total number of games. There will be a finals tournament in November and December, consisting of the top four teams, with the semi finals being over two legs.
Vocabulary
fanfare: publicity, advertising
(a) draw: (in this context) a selling point, an attraction
moniker:A nickname, alternative name
spectator: fan, member of the audience, supporter
relegation dogfight:A the struggle to avoid being relegated to a lower league. Often at the end of the season, two or three teams struggle to stay in the top league
local boy: someone born and brought up in the area
over two legs: two matches, home and away
Links of interest
2014 Indian Super League Season – Wikipedia
The official site of the ISL
