The 2020 I-League qualifiers (also known as Hero I-League Qualifiers 2020 for sponsorship reasons) was the 13th season of I-League 2nd Division, the second division of Indian football league, since its establishment in 2008. The league was kicked-off from 25 January 2020.
The season was shortened due to COVID-19 pandemic in India and Mohammedan won the league, being promoted to 2020–21 I-League.
Teams This season, 17 teams participated, including one reserve side from I-League (Punjab) and eight from Indian Super League (ATK, Jamshedpur, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Chennaiyin, Mumbai City, Goa and Kerala Blasters). All the teams had been divided into three groups of six teams in A and C, and five teams in group B. The teams which made their debut this season were Bengaluru United, Rajasthan FC, Punjab FC (reserves), Hyderabad FC (reserves) and Mumbai City FC (reserves). Indian Arrows reserves were supposed to debut this season, but later withdrew, since it consists of U-16 and U-18 players, which had their board examinations.
Stadiums and locations
TeamCity/StateStadiumCapacityARAAhmedabad, GujaratEKA Arena22,000ATK (R)Barasat, West BengalAditya Academy Ground10,000RajasthanJodhpur, RajasthanMaharaja Umed Singh Stadium6,000Bengaluru (R)Bengaluru, KarnatakaBengaluru Football Stadium8,400Bengaluru UnitedBengaluru, KarnatakaBengaluru Football Stadium8,400BhawaniporeKolkata, West BengalKalyani Stadium 20,000Chennaiyin (R)Chennai, Tamil NaduSSN College Ground400GarhwalNew Delhi, DelhiAmbedkar Stadium35,000Goa (R)Margao, GoaGMC Stadium3,200Hyderabad (R)Hyderabad, Telangana Gachibowli Athletic Stadium30,000Jamshedpur (R)Jamshedpur, JharkhandJRD Tata Sports Complex24,500KeralaThrissur, KeralaThrissur Municipal Corporation Stadium15,000Kerala Blasters (R)Ernakulam, KeralaPanampally Ground300Lonestar KashmirKatra, Jammu and KashmirSMVDSB Sports Complex2,600MohammedanHowrah, West BengalSailen Manna Stadium15,000Mumbai City (R)Mumbai, MaharashtraCooperage Ground5,000Punjab (R)Ludhiana, PunjabGuru Nanak Stadium15,000 Due to COVID-19 pandemic, all the rescheduled matches after COVID-19 pandemic, will be played in a single venue. AIFF declared Kolkata and Kalyani as the venue on 14 August for the final round after cancelling the remaining matches of the preliminary round. Matches will be played at Kalyani Stadium in Kalyani and at Salt Lake Stadium in Kolkata.
Personnel and kits TeamManagerKit manufacturerShirt sponsorARA Vivek NagulSEVENAmulATK (R) Deggie CardozoNiviaBengaluru (R) Naushad MoosaPumaKia MotorsBengaluru United Richard HoodMS SportswearThe Organic WorldBhawanipore Sankarlal ChakrabortyCoscoSangbad PratidinChennaiyin (R) Santosh KashyapPerformaxApollo TyresGarhwal Vikas RawatVector XONGCGoa (R) Clifford MirandaT10Adda52.comHyderabad (R) Anshul Katiyar Reyaur SportsJai Raj SteelJamshedpur (R) Noel WilsonNiviaTata SteelKerala TG Purushothaman CoscoYologansKerala Blasters (R) Renjith AjithkumarReyaur SportsMuthootLonestar Kashmir Kenichi YatsuhashiKaizenRising KashmirMohammedan Sol CampbellKaizenTRAK OnlyMumbai City (R) Mohan DasSquad GearSportsAddaPunjab (R) Curtis Fleming SpartanApollo TyresRajasthan Mangesh DesaiAIO SportsAU Small Finance Bank
Managerial changes
Team Outgoing manager Manner of departure Incoming manager Date of appointment Mohammedan Raghunath Nandi2019 Yan Law2020 Lonestar Kashmir Miki Lladó2019 Kenichi Yatsuhashi2020
Foreign players Each club, excluding the reserve sides, can register three foreign players in their squad. One of the foreign players has to be from an AFC Member Nation. TeamPlayer 1Player 2Asian VisaARA Eze Stanley Camara Bakia Rajesh PariyarRajasthan Collins Patterson Muhammad IqbalBengaluru United Robert Primus William OpokuBhawanipore Philip Adjah Ansumana KromahGarhwal Bala Dahir Ekomobong Victor Philip Kerala Cyrille Brohiri Lonestar Kashmir Ellon Maxwell Bema CoulibalyMohammedan Willis Plaza Eze Kingsley Abhishek Rijal
Preliminary round TiebreakersThe teams are ranked according to points (3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss). If two or more teams are equal on points on completion of the group matches, the following criteria are applied in the order given to determine the rankings: Greater number of points obtained in the matches between the Teams concerned Goal difference resulting from the matches between the Teams concerned Greater number of goals scored in the matches between the Teams concerned Goal difference in all the matches Greater number of goals scored in all the matches Drawing of lots
Group A
Results
Fixtures and results
Group B
Results
Fixtures and results
Group C
Results
Fixtures and results
I-League qualifiers Due to the COVID-19 pandemic in India, usual final round format was scrapped off. It was decided that the final round of the league will be rescheduled into a new format and all the non-reserve teams from the preliminary stage will automatically progress to this round. It was officially named as I-League Qualifiers. The teams in this round will play in a round-robin format in two venues, at Salt Lake Stadium in Kolkata and Kalyani Stadium in Kalyani, near Kolkata. The team with highest points would advance to the 2020–21 I-League. Out of the eight non-reserve teams, FC Kerala, Lonestar Kashmir FC and Rajasthan FC pulled out from tournament due to financial and other constraints.
TiebreakersThe teams are ranked according to points (3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss). If two or more teams are equal on points on completion of the group matches, the following criteria are applied in the order given to determine the rankings: Greater number of points obtained in the matches between the Teams concerned Goal difference resulting from the matches between the Teams concerned Greater number of goals scored in the matches between the Teams concerned Goal difference in all the matches Greater number of goals scored in all the matches Drawing of lots
Final round
Results
Fixtures and results
Season statistics
Top scorers
RankPlayerClubGoals1 Syed Shoaib AhmedARA7 Ekombong Victor PhilipGarhwal3 Dieye HamidouARA64 Shakir Ahmed SheikhLonestar Kashmir5 John Chidi UzodinmaMohammedan William PauliankhumATK (R) 7 Billu TeliJamshedpur (R)4 Ronaldo Oliveira Kerala Blasters (R)
Hat-tricks
PlayerForAgainstResultDateRef Syed Shoaib AhmedARAMumbai City (R)5–025 January 2020 Mohammad Asrar RehbarBengaluru UnitedMumbai City (R)6–01 March 2020 John Chidi UzodinmaMohammedan Bengaluru (R) 3–15 March 2020 Syed Shoaib AhmedARAMumbai (R) 3–16 March 2020 Ekombong Victor PhilipGarhwal ATK (R) 4–110 March 2020
Cleansheets
RankPlayerClubCleansheets1 Srijith RBengaluru United42 Iprotip DasARA3 Priyant SinghMohammedan4 Nitin MeelRajasthan 2 Raj Kumar MahatoJamshedpur (R) Amrit GopeJamshedpur (R) Ahamed AfsarKerala Lara SharmaATK (R) Sayak Barai Garhwal Antonio da SilvaGoa (R)
Average home attendances
TeamF.C. Kerala2900700200450 ARA41150450150287Bhawanipore339530020131Rajasthan2200200200200Lonestar Kashmir456735052141Garhwal31400550350466Mohammedan214001200200700Bengaluru United41050450150262ATK (R)5120170050240Goa (R)41250500200312Mumbai City (R)4760200160190Kerala Blasters (R)336025050120Bengaluru (R)2555455100277Chennaiyin (R)42151002553Hyderabad (R)337520050125Punjab (R)3465250105155Jamshedpur (R)469723760174Total5412,940120020239
References
External links https://i-league.org/category/2nd-division-league/ https://www.the-aiff.com/competitions/second-division