And so another season of India's first division rumbles to an end. The league stages, anyway. There was one playoff place to be decided in the final round of fixtures but almost typically for this season, it was decided more by the negative result of one team rather than the positive result of the other.
We muse, one last time, on the league stages of the 2022/23 Indian Super League (ISL) season:
Odisha slip through, somehow
It was in their hands going into the final week. Avoid a loss against second-from-bottom Jamshedpur and a playoff place was theirs. What did Odisha go and do? Put up an insipid performance where they were overpowered by a down-and-out side that's been pretty poor all season.
Sample this for a stat: shots on target for Jamshedpur, eight. For Odisha? One. Not a great look for the side that really needed the point.
Diego Mauricio's consistent goal threat (12 goals, joint-top of the scoring charts with Cleiton Silva) and Nandhakumar Sekar's sporadic brilliance (9/10 or 2/10, there's rarely anything in between) had somehow kept Odisha in the hunt for the playoffs, seeing off the massive cliff dive their form took in the second half of the season... but now their fates would be decided by another team. Goa were that team and boy did they do Odisha a favour.
Goa lose their heads as Bengaluru continue to keep theirs
Marching into the Kanteerava, against the division's form team, FC Goa had to be tuned in from the get-go. If Sivasakthi Narayanan's opener was anything to go by, they were not.
As the match went on, Bengaluru seemed content with the proceedings; even when Goa equalised they never looked too flustered. Goa, on the other, hand, were cutting increasingly frustrated figures, off and on the pitch.
The reactions to Bengaluru's controversial second indicated that -- there was still time to attempt a comeback, but Goa never looked likely to mount one.
P.S. Talking of comebacks: wow, Simon Grayson. That's now eight wins in eight games since the turn of the year. No team is carrying this much momentum into the knockouts.
Kerala Blasters keep their worst for the last
The Blasters caved in meekly to visitors Hyderabad FC on Sunday in the last match of this season's league stage, and you could see it coming from a mile off.
A brilliant team goal and a strong defensive performance decided the fate in #KBFCHFC as @HydFCOfficial secured their first win in #Kochi ����
Watch the full highlights! ��#HeroISL #LetsFootball #KeralaBlasters #HyderabadFC
- Indian Super League (@IndSuperLeague) February 27, 2023
That's now six losses in their last eight games as their season crumpled into a disappointing fifth-placed finish. Now, they face a knockout match away from home (they have won only three games in 10 away games this season) against arch-rivals Bengaluru.
To make it worse, they'll have to do it without star man Ivan Kalyuzhnyi in midfield - the Ukrainian picked up a seventh (suspension-incurring) yellow card of the season in a match of zero consequence. Why he was even playing is a question that a lot of Blasters fans will still be asking.
(ATK) Mohun Bagan beat East Bengal again, but what's the point?
The two Kolkata giants have been in the ISL for three seasons now and not once has the red-and-yellow half taken a point from a league derby. That wasn't to change this season either. Bagan won easily, a 2-0 score about underlining how wide the gap still is between the two.
They weren't great, like for most of the season, but against their arch-rivals, they didn't even need to be. And that's probably going to sting East Bengal fans more than the loss itself.
The official attendance for the derby was marked at 60,000: but off the television coverage, it seemed a rather underwhelming crowd...much like the (non) build-up in a city that lives and breathes this game. Most of the time, anyway. This time, it just didn't seem to matter.
The only way this match could have been any more irrelevant was if the AIFF had decided to hold it in Riyadh. Perhaps one day soon, eh?
Chennaiyin vs NorthEast a microcosm of their seasons
Seven goals scored, Chennaiyin the winner by the odd one. Chennaiyin were terrible at the back but just about good enough going forward. NorthEast were terrible at the back but just not good enough going forward. Story of their seasons.
For both teams, it's been a chastening few months - NorthEast finishing with the horrendous record of having won just one match in 20, while Chennaiyin flattered to deceive as they limped to an 8th-place finish.
Now, Thomas Brdaric and Vincenzo Annese have shown enough to suggest they should be trusted, and importantly, backed in the long run; whether that happens or not will be the biggest question surrounding the two clubs over the summer.