Juan Ferrando starts his day by sending Whatsapp messages to several people nearly 7500 kms away. To fitness coaches, team doctors, and players. What else can the newly appointed coach of FC Goa, the ISL league stage winners and India's representatives in the AFC Champions League, do while Barcelona (and the rest of the world) is in lockdown?

"This is the moment to learn, to work, work, work, and to bin excuses," he says. Ferrando explains how he spends his day discussing previous injuries and working...

FC Goa have announced Spaniard Juan Ferrando as their head coach for the 2020-21 season of the Indian Super League (ISL).

Ferrando, 39, will be replacing former India international Clifford Miranda, who had taken charge as interim coach from Sergio Lobera in February this year.

Lobera's departure had come even as Goa led the table and looked within sight of sealing top place in the league table. Goa would go on to do so, and confirm their place in the AFC Champions League group stages for 2021...

On May 16, 2019, the village of Khurai Khomidok in Imphal East, Manipur, came to a standstill to greet its favourite son.

Mohammad Nawaz had just returned from his first full season in Indian football -- in 20 months, he had gone from rejection for India's U-17 team for the World Cup to becoming FC Goa's first-choice goalkeeper. He had taken them to the ISL final, before finishing off with the Player of the Match award in the Super Cup final as Goa won their first trophy.

As Nawaz enjoyed an open-jeep...

Here is our team of the 2019-20 ISL season, picked with the intention of having a reasonable ability to actually play well together on the pitch if the hypothetical scenario ever came through. Of course, there have been minor alterations and some imagination added to the mix, but we are reasonably confident that the team makes rational sense playing in this 4-2-3-1 formation. And yes, as per ISL rules, there are only five foreigners in the team.

Goalkeeper: Gurpreet Singh Sandhu [Bengaluru FC]

If...

A record 16 goals were scored in this season's ISL playoffs, and when the dust cleared, ATK and Chennaiyin FC were the two teams left standing. ESPN brings you some of the key numbers that ISL 2019-20 threw at us. 

1

ATK are the first team in ISL history to have overturned a two-goal deficit in the course of the semi-finals and qualify for the final. ATK had conceded a 1-0 defeat to Bengaluru in the first leg away, and were set back by an early Ashique Kuruniyan goal; that meant ATK needed...