The season four of Indian Super League (ISL) will begin tomorrow (Nov. 17) and will conclude on Mar. 4, 2018. The finals will commence from the second week of March 2018 with the final to be played on Mar.17 at Kolkata.

Two new franchises

This year, two new franchises Bengaluru and Jamshedpur will be the ninth and tenth teams in the league which makes this the first season where more than eight team to part in the league. The ISL will now be played for five months instead of previous three months.

Atletico de Kolkata (ATK) are the defending champions from the 2016 season. They defeated the Kerala Blasters in the final on penalties to win the championship.

On May 11, it was announced by the Indian Super League (ISL) organisers that they would be inviting bids for new teams to join the league for the upcoming season. The bids would be for ten cities, namely Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Cuttack, Durgapur, Hyderabad, Jamshedpur, Kolkata, Ranchi, Siliguri and Thiruvanathapuram. It was also clarified that if Kolkata were to win at least one bid that the new ‘Kolkata’ side would have to play away from the city for only two seasons.

It was also announced that Bengaluru, the two-time champion of the I-League, India’s top-tier professional football league, had submitted a bid. Two weeks later it was officially announced that Bengaluru (for Bengaluru) and Tata Group (for Jamshedpur) had won the bids for the new teams.

In the first match of this season, the defending champions Atletico de Kolkata will take on last year’s runner-up Kerala Blasters FC.

Tomorrow’s Match

Atletico de Kolkata Vs Kerala Blasters FC

Venue: Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, Kochi, 8 pm.

Catch the live action on Star Sports Network