ISL 2026-27: Top 5 players to watch out for Bengaluru FC
Kanteerava Stadium to host the SC Delhi vs Bengaluru clash at 5:00 pm.
Pep Muñoz walked into the Bengaluru FC dugout in late March, replacing Renedy Singh with the season already in full flight. He had no pre-season, no signings and barely a fortnight to put a stamp on the side. He still finished fourth.
The margin tells the story. Bengaluru ended the 13-match campaign on 23 points, just three behind champions East Bengal. Muñoz’s Blues closed with back-to-back wins and spent the summer wondering about the points they dropped along the way.
Now comes the rebuild. Bengaluru have signed five foreign players this window while holding on to the spine of the Indian group, barring the exit of Rahul Bheke to Mohun Bagan SG.
The motivation is obvious. For all their history, the Blues have lacked major silverware lately: their last trophy was the Durand Cup in the 2022-23 season. With the new campaign kicking off on 10 October, there is real hope around the Kanteerava that this is the year the drought ends.
Here are the five players who could decide it.
1. Menno Koch
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He has marked Robin van Persie, Frenkie de Jong and Dušan Tadić in the Eredivisie. Menno Koch, a PSV Eindhoven academy graduate, won the Under-17 European Championship with the Netherlands and was part of the PSV squad that lifted the Eredivisie in 2014-15. Now he is bringing that résumé to the ISL.
Primarily a centre-back, the 32-year-old Dutchman also has experience covering at right-back.
Koch arrives as a free agent after his Sarpsborg 08 contract ran out in June. He made 54 Eliteserien league appearances in Norway across 2024 to 2026. Before that came three and a half seasons at CSKA Sofia, where he captained the side, made 62 league appearances, scored six goals, won the 2021 Bulgarian Cup and played in the Conference League group stage against Roma and Bodø/Glimt.
Spells at NAC Breda, Utrecht and Eupen fill out the rest. This is his first move outside Europe.
At 1.95m, Koch will be among the tallest defenders in the league, which makes him a natural fit for set-piece defending and for dealing with direct balls. Muñoz has singled out his physicality and passing range, and that second quality is the interesting one.
Muñoz wants his team to build from the goalkeeper and play out with confidence, and that only works if the centre-backs can break the first line with a pass.
Rahul Bheke has left for Mohun Bagan SG, so Bengaluru lost a senior defender in the same window they invested in one. Koch and fellow new arrival Embaló give Muñoz two fresh options at the heart of defence, with Palande the young alternative. The one question mark is recovery pace against ISL wingers in the heat. If Koch’s positioning covers for that, Bengaluru’s back line could be one of the league’s most composed.
Also Read: ISL 2026-27: Bengaluru FC fixtures for Phase 1
2. Manuel de Iriondo
Six years at Unión de Santa Fe in the Argentine top flight, a season in France’s Ligue 2 with Grenoble, then stops in Romania, Spain and Cyprus. Manuel de Iriondo is a midfielder who has seen most of football’s second-tier leagues and learned how to survive in all of them.
Plying his trade mainly as a defensive midfielder, Iriondo is also comfortable as a central midfielder.
The 33-year-old joins from Krasava ENY Ypsonas, where he played around 1,765 league minutes across 23 Cypriot First Division matches in 2025-26, starting 20 of them. Before that he spent two seasons at Ethnikos Achna, scoring eight goals in roughly 60 appearances, a decent return for a holding player. He also collected a fair share of cards (six yellows and a red last season), which tells you he does not shy away from challenges.
Muñoz describes him as a midfielder who understands the game deeply: when to press, when to hold, and how to connect the team. In plain terms, Iriondo is a screen and a link. He sits in front of the back four, wins second balls and keeps possession ticking. That is exactly what was missing last season, when Bengaluru were organised at the back but struggled to control games through the middle.
Muñoz’s preferred shape is a 4-2-3-1 with two holding midfielders, and Iriondo is built for one of those spots. He pairs most naturally with a more mobile partner alongside him, leaving the experienced Argentine to dictate tempo and cover. At 33, he will not run all day, and that is by design. Expect him to play fewer minutes of chaos and more minutes of control for Bengaluru FC.
3. Suresh Singh Wangjam
Seven seasons, one club. Suresh Singh Wangjam arrived at Bengaluru from the Indian Arrows pathway in 2019 and has become one of the longest-serving players in the squad, with well over 100 ISL appearances in Blue.
He can operate as either a central or defensive midfielder, allowing him to drop into the six or step up as an eight.
Let’s be honest: 2025-26 was a step back. Though he played all 13 games the previous season and scored once, his performance was a long way down from 2024-25, and our own season review named him the squad’s underperformer. His passing lacked progression and he was too often bypassed in midfield battles. That is exactly why he is on this list. The question is not whether Suresh can play at this level. He has done it for years. The question is whether he can do it with more authority.
At 5ft 5in, Suresh is not going to win aerial duels. His value lies in energy, mobility and the ability to move in tight spaces. In a double pivot, that kind of midfielder covers the ground that a deeper, slower partner cannot.
This is the pairing to watch. Iriondo controls, Suresh covers and carries. If Suresh can lift his ball progression, Muñoz has a balanced engine room for a possession-minded 4-2-3-1. If he cannot, the Indian midfield spot becomes the most contested seat in the squad. A full pre-season under a coach who has already shown he trusts his players could be exactly the reset he needs.
4. Ryan Williams
Photo: Abhinav Ashish Aind/Focus Sports/ ISL
Portsmouth, Fulham, Barnsley, Oxford United, Rotherham, Perth Glory. Ryan Williams has played his football across England and Australia, and in 2026 he did something no Indian international had done before: he scored four minutes after coming on in his debut against Hong Kong in Kochi, the fastest goal ever by an Indian debutant. The Australia-born winger had given up his Australian citizenship to make it happen.
A right winger by trade, the 32-year-old can also play across the front line.
In a season where goals were hard to find, Williams was Bengaluru’s joint-top scorer in the ISL with four goals from 12 appearances (1,032 minutes), and he added two more in the Super Cup. He also scored twice for India in 2026. The year before, he had delivered seven goals and four assists as the Blues reached the ISL final. That is a player who produces whenever he is in the team.
Pace, directness and an appetite for taking defenders on. He cuts inside from the right, links with players around the box and unsettles back lines that sit deep. Opponents who park the bus tend to struggle when Williams runs at them with space behind.
Last season’s biggest lesson was the need to reduce the reliance on Chhetri. Williams, wide on the right of Muñoz’s front four, gives the team a second source of goals and a runner to stretch defences. With new options like Mihailo Perović up front, Williams can attack the channels and the space that creates. Expect him to be central to the attack again.
5. Mihailo Perović
Budapest, Belgrade, Podgorica, Luhansk, Ljubljana and Surabaya. Mihailo Perović has played in six countries across two continents, and Bengaluru is the next stop on a well-travelled road. The Montenegrin striker began his career at Hungary’s Újpest, and has since played for Voždovac, Budućnost Podgorica, Zorya Luhansk, NK Olimpija, FK Iskra and FK Jezero.
A classic target man, he joins from Persebaya Surabaya, where he scored six goals and provided one assist in the 2025-26 Indonesian Super League. It is not a gaudy return, but it shows he can adapt to Asian conditions, which many European strikers cannot. He has also earned seven caps and scored one goal for Montenegro.
Muñoz calls him an intense, physical and imposing striker who is, above all, a team player. That is the profile of a forward who holds the ball, wins aerial duels and presses from the front, and creates space for those around him rather than only scoring himself.
The Blues lacked a consistent goalscoring threat last season, and Perović is the answer Muñoz has chosen. As the lone nine in a 4-2-3-1, he gives Williams and Borja Martínez runners to feed off, and he gives the 42-year-old Chhetri a physical partner to share the load. If Perović lives up to his billing, the days of one man carrying the goals could finally be behind Bengaluru.
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