Mumbai Football Arena to reportedly host 2018-19 ISL final

The Maharashtra capital has already hosted a finale once in the past.

The Indian Super League committee has reportedly made a decision to play the final of the 2018-19 season, in Mumbai Football Arena, in Maharashtra on 17th March 2019. The stadium is also the home turf of Mumbai City FC.

The road to the final match will include two semi-finals played in over two legs. The first legs will be played on 8/9th March and the return legs on 11/12th March. The first and the fourth-placed team in the league phase will face each other on 8th and 11th March while the second and third-placed team on 9th and 12th March. 

The gap of four days is given to provide enough rest days for the two finalist teams.

Mumbai have already hosted a final in the tournament's debut season in 2014 when ATK won against Kerala Blasters. It was held in DY Patil Stadium then which had 55,000 capacity.

The decision to select Mumbai comes as a surprise as there is only a 9000 seating capacity in the Football Arena, much less than the home bases of the other teams, Bengaluru FC, FC Goa and Northeast United. The turf's quality and infrastructure may have played a strong role in the process.

ALSO READ

• Exclusive: Since my academy days I have always wanted to play abroad- Lallianzuala Chhangte

• Gurpreet Singh Sandhu and Amrinder Singh to battle it out for the ISL Golden Glove award

• With only pride at stake, Jamshedpur host Bengaluru in their last fixture of the season

[KH_RELATED_NEWS title="Related News"][/KH_RELATED_NEWS]

Mumbai City FC failed to gather local support throughout the tournament but the Ranbir Kapoor-owned team is not worried for the knockout stages. As quoted by The Times of India in its report, "For the first final, 35000 people showed up at the DY Patil Stadium, and Mumbai wasn't even playing. We saw how the stadium was full to capacity for the final of the Intercontinental Cup last year. The final of the ISL is bound to be the best domestic match-up, so people will come to watch."

Mumbai City FC made it to the semi-finals in 2016 as well but lost to eventual winners ATK in the semi-finals. Currently, they sit at third position and it is likely that they will face FC Goa over two legs. FC Goa did a double over Mumbai City, 5-0 and 2-0 in the league stage and it will be interesting to see if the Islanders will play the in final fixture or not.