Increased competition - A regular feature of the I-League
The I-league is considered to be the best football tournament in India. Though it is not among the top leagues in the world considering the quality of football or players, it is certainly a very interesting league if we consider the competition among the teams.
In the famous leagues like EPL, La Liga and Serie A, the difference between the top teams and bottoms teams is generally huge, whereas in the I-league, the difference is relatively less. In La Liga, the point to match ratio is usually between 2.5 to 2.6 for the champion team, champions Barcelona secured 100 points in 38 matches last year, and the relegated team hardly has a point to match ratio of 1.0. Small teams really struggle against the big teams like Barcelona and Real Madrid.
In the Barclays Premier League, the condition is a little better, here the points to match ratio for the champions generally lies between 2.2 to 2.4. In Serie A , Juventus has been dominating the league for the last few years and they are about to win the title this year too. And a notable point is that the fight for the championship is always limited to two or three teams in each of these leagues. In La Liga, the champion is always either Barcelona or Real Madrid, and in EPL, England have had only four champions since the formation of the Premier League.
But in the I-league a points to match ratio of 2.0 can make a team win the league, while a ratio of 2.2 will assure them of the League title. This year’s championship fight was even harder as champions Bengaluru FC could get only 47 points from 24 matches, which is less than 2 points per match. Another good side of the league is that India has had four different teams winning the championship in the last four years.
In contrast to European leagues, more teams fight for the championship every year. And the relegation fight was also very interesting; we had to wait till the last round of matches to see which team is relegated. Several teams were fighting to save themselves from relegation this year.
A comparison among the popular European leagues and the I-league is shown below.
| League | No of champions in last 10 years | No of dominating teams | Points scored by the team finishing 1st (2010-11) (38 matches) | Points scored by the team finishing 1st (2011-12) (38 matches) | Points scored by the team finishing 1st (2012-13) (38 matches) | Average point to match ratio |
| La liga | 3 | 2 | 96 | 100 | 100 | 2.60 |
| EPL | 3 | 4 | 80 | 89 | 89 | 2.26 |
| Serie A | 3 | 3 | 82 | 84 | 87 | 2.22 |
| I-league | 5 | 4-5 | 56 (in 26 matches) | 57 (in 26 matches) | 55 (in 26 matches) | 2.15 |
Another interesting fact is that the promoted teams in the European leagues always struggle to survive in the 1st division, but in the case of the I-league, the scenario is exactly the opposite. Promoted teams do not always struggle, and this year a miracle happened. Bengaluru FC won the league in their first season.
These statistics clearly show that the competition among the teams in the I-league is increasing day by day, and we could see many unexpected results this season like champions Bengaluru FC losing to strugglers Rangdajied FC, and the runners up East Bengal FC losing to the bottom team, Churchill brothers.
The reason behind this is the fact that the difference among Indian teams is very less, unlike the EPL and the La liga. There are several teams fighting for the Championship. In the middle of the league table, the difference of points is very minimal. This is certainly a good sign for Indian football; this tough competition makes the league very interesting and is certainly an asset to the league.