The 2017–18 Indian Super League season was the fourth season of the Indian Super League, one of the top Indian professional

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

leagues. It was established in 2013. The regular season started on 17 November 2017 and ended on 4 March 2018, The finals began on 7 March 2018, concluding with

the final Final, Finals or The Final may refer to: *Final (competition), the last or championship round of a sporting competition, match, game, or other contest which decides a winner for an event ** Another term for playoffs, describing a sequence of cont ...

on 17 March 2018. ATK were the defending champions from the 2016 season, however they could not advance to the playoffs.

Chennaiyin Chennaiyin Football Club is an Indian professional Association football, football club based in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. The club competes in the Indian Super League, the top flight of Football in India, Indian football. The club was founded in Au ...

won their second Indian Super League title by defeating

Bengaluru Bangalore (), officially Bengaluru (), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It has a population of more than and a metropolitan population of around , making it the third most populous city and fifth most ...

3–2 in the final. Two new sides joined the league as expansion teams:

and

Jamshedpur Jamshedpur (, ) or Tatanagar is the largest and most populous city in Jharkhand and the first planned industrial city in India. It is a Notified Area Council and Municipal Corporation and also the headquarter of the East Singhbhum district. It ...

. The two new clubs are the ninth and tenth teams in the league. This made it the first edition of the ISL in which there are more than eight teams participating. As well as expanding two teams, the league also expanded two more months, being played in five months instead of three.

Teams

Stadiums and locations

Expansion

On 11 May 2017, it was announced by the Indian Super League organizers,

Football Sports Development Football Sports Development Limited is an Indian company established to operate the Indian Super League, the top tier football league in India. The company is run as a subsidiary to Reliance. The company is the commercial partner of All India F ...

, 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 Ahmedabad ( ; Gujarati: Amdavad ) is the most populous city in the Indian state of Gujarat. It is the administrative headquarters of the Ahmedabad district and the seat of the Gujarat High Court. Ahmedabad's population of 5,570,585 (per t ...

, Cuttack, Durgapur, Hyderabad,

, Kolkata,

Ranchi Ranchi (, ) is the capital of the Indian state of Jharkhand. Ranchi was the centre of the Jharkhand movement, which called for a separate state for the tribal regions of South Bihar, northern Odisha, western West Bengal and the eastern area ...

Siliguri Siliguri, ) is a major tier-II city in West Bengal. It forms twin cities, "Twin Cities" with the neighboring district capital of Jalpaiguri. The city spans areas of the Darjeeling district, Darjeeling and Jalpaiguri districts in the Indian sta ...

and Thiruvananthapuram. It was also clarified that if Kolkata were to win at least one bid for a team, the new "Kolkata" side would have to play away from the city for two seasons. On 25 May 2017, it was announced that bidding for new teams had ended and that the league's appointed external validator would look over the bids. It was also announced that

, the two-time champion of the I-League, India's top-tier professional

league, had submitted a bid. Two weeks later, on 12 June, it was officially announced that

(for Bangalore) and Tata Group (for

) had won the bids for the new teams.

Personnel and sponsorship

Head coaching changes

Roster changes

Overseas players

Unlike during the first three seasons of the Indian Super League, the 2017–18 season saw the maximum number of foreign players per team reduced to eight from 11. Also unlike the previous three seasons, the maximum number of foreigners allowed on the pitch at the same time was reduced to five from six.

Regular season

Results

Playoffs

Bracket

Semi-finals

Final

Season statistics

Scoring

Top scorers

Top Indian scorers

Hat-tricks

Assists

Cleansheets

Discipline

* Most yellow cards (club): 47 ** Chennaiyin * Most red cards (club): 4 ** Delhi Dynamos * Most yellow cards (player): 9 **

Dhanpal Ganesh Dhanpal Ganesh (born 13 June 1994) is an Indian professional footballer who plays as a midfielder for Chennaiyin in the Indian Super League. Career Pune Born in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, Ganesh became the first player from the Pune Academy to sig ...

(Chennaiyin) * Most red cards (player): 2 **

Pratik Chowdhary Pratik Prabhakar Chaudhari (born 4 October 1989) is an Indian professional footballer who plays as a defender for Indian Super League club Jamshedpur. Career Early career Born in Mumbai, Maharashtra, Chaudhari began his football career while s ...

(Delhi Dynamos)

Average home attendances

Awards

*Source
Indian Super League website

Hero of the Match

Emerging Player of the Match

Fans' Player of the Month

Fans' Team of the Season

End-of-season awards

References

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:2017-18 Indian Super League season Indian Super League seasons 1 India