Mohun Bagan were peak Mohun Bagan - unstoppable, clutch, knowing how to win. They take home both the Shield and the Cup, only the second team to do the double in the Indian Super League and all the headlines from the 2024-25 season.
What else happened, though? We recap the most memorable moments from the season that was:
Highlight of the season
Watching Sunil Chhetri play.
The whole of last season, for large parts in previous ones, we'd seen the great man decline in front of our eyes. A millisecond late to positions he'd usually always be in, finishing that had become awry, outpaced and outmuscled at random... it'd been a bit of a painful sight.
This season, though, he was remarkable. The touch is back, the goals are back and so is that I'll-seize-the-moment-clutchness. He was the best Indian player in the league by a country mile and at 40 years old had one of his best ever domestic seasons. How can you not love that?
Burden-free Chhetri, New leaders: How Bengaluru FC became ISL contenders again
Best goal of the season
Sourav K vs Kerala Blasters. The very last goal of the ISL league stage.
This is one of those goals that's just beautiful. The context is largely meaningless -- a dead rubber between two teams who'd had poor seasons - but in isolation, the goal was a work of art. And sometimes that's all that matters.
An Abdul Rabeeh cross in from the right created chaos in the Blasters box, got deflect off a prone Korou Singh and looped into the air; way too high for young Hyderabad winger Sourav to even think of heading the ball. So, he chose the only logical option, launching himself in the air feet up and once parallel to the ground whipping his right forward and connecting sweetly -- it lashed into the top corner, Nora Fernandes in the Blasters goal reduced to standing and admiring.
DEFYING GRAVITY! ��#ISL #LetsFootball #HyderabadFC #SouravK #ISLGoal | @JioHotstar @StarSportsIndia @HydFCOfficial pic.twitter.com/65YNUf9LkW
- Indian Super League (@IndSuperLeague) March 13, 2025
Not a shabby way to score your debut ISL goal, eh? Look out for him starting more matches next season.
Best comeback
Season-to-season: Bengaluru FC
From slumping to tenth in the league last season to third and the cup final, it was a remarkable transformation. Gerard Zaragoza was superb, managing (the superb) summer signings, Chhetri, and an all-Indian backline cleverly and having them play some of the best football in the division.
In-game: Jamshedpur FC vs Bengaluru FC (2-1, Jan 4)
Down-and-out they looked. Battered by BFC throughout. Trailing 0-1 from minute 19 but distinctly second-best from minute 1. Somehow, Jamshedpur held on, and on, until in minute 84' Jordan Murray produced a slow-motion bicycle kick and six minutes later Mohammed Uvais first-time lobbed a loose Gurpreet Singh Sandhu punch-out straight back over his head. No one had seen it coming before Murray scored, but the moment he scored, you knew this was on.
Khalid Jamil's men were impossible to get points off at home, and this match showed everyone just why.
Best stat of the season
30.
23 goals, 7 assists = 30 goal contributions. Alaeddine Ajaraie was from another planet this ISL.
To put that into sharp context, the NorthEast United magician was involved in 18 more goals than Mohammedan Sporting, eight more than Hyderabad FC, three more than East Bengal and one more than defending champs Mumbai City scored this whole season. Remarkable.
Best assist of the season
Ritwik 'Iniesta' Das vs NorthEast United
In the 98th minute of Jamshedpur's eliminator vs NorthEast United, Ritwik Das suddenly turned into an ersatz Andres Iniesta. Played through on the left flank, he stopped drag-flicked a nutmeg past Bemmamer, stood again, croqueta-ed past Asheer Akthar and calmly teed up Javi Hernandez (who took the mickey too, by sitting down keeper Gurmeet Singh, shuffling past him and clipping into the net).
काफ़ी उम्दा तकनीक ��
हावी और रित्विक ने की जमशेदपुर की बाज़ी कम्प्लीट ��Watch #ISL 2024-25 live on @JioHotstar & #StarSports3 �� https://t.co/RoGmahYnwF #NEUJFC #ISLPlayoffs #JamKeKhelo pic.twitter.com/VUluGuTuUE
- Jamshedpur FC (@JamshedpurFC) March 31, 2025
*Chef's kiss*
Best tactical adjustment
Jose Molina ditching the 3-at-the-back formation.
In the Durand Cup, Molina experimented with a 3-atb formation that had Liston Colaco and Manvir Singh play as wingers... and Bagan were a bit underwhelming (even if they did make the final). He kept at it for the first match of the season and saw his team draw Mumbai City 2-2. In the second, he switched to a 4-4-2 with two defensive midfielders and got swatted aside 3-0 by Bengaluru. He tweaked it once more, keeping Apuia and replacing Abhishek Suryavanshi with the more adventurous Anirudh Thapa in the middle, having Jamie Maclaren play a bit further ahead of Jason Cummings and that was that.
Pure domination ensued and from League Shield to Cup triumph there was an air of inevitability about it all.
It started, though, by switching from 3-4-3 to 4-4-2 and then nailing it with the 4-4-1-1.
Biggest season-changing injury
This is more of a 'what if' than anything else... what if Sandesh Jhingan had been fully fit for the duration of the season?
FC Goa were the second-best team of the season, but could they have pushed record-breaking Mohun Bagan a bit more if he'd been fit from the start?
Sample this: Goa took six points from the six games he missed at 1 ppg. In the remaining 18, they took 42 points at 2.3 ppg. Two losses, three draws in six became two losses, three draws in 18! It was an incredible transformation, and Jhingan's return had a large part to play in this. If he'd started the first six...
Best he-should-have-made-the-India-team player
Sunil Che Oh, never mind.
Biggest surprise package
NorthEast United Football Club.
The Durand Cup had promised big things and powered by the incredible Ajaraie they were a joy to watch this ISL. They played great football, and it took a Khalid Jamil special to stop them in the playoffs. Their appointment of Mandar Tamhane as CEO in 2023 has started to pay dividends already - they look a team with a clarity of thought on and off the pitch, something that's not always been said of them.
Biggest disappointment of the season
The Luna-Noah show that never was.
How much promise this move held. Noah Sadaoui was all sorts of brilliant for Goa last season, and here he was, joining up with the master playmaker that is Adrian Luna. Both, though, disappointed -- individually and collectively. With neither at their best a connection never formed, and the hype sank in the same slow, agonizing manner their club's playoff hopes did.
P.S. An honourable mention to Odisha and Sergio Lobera: they played brilliantly once in five games, ambled through most of the season, saw Ahmed Jahouh go AWOL, and generally just fizzled out by the end.
Club that would wish this season never happened
East Bengal, Mohammedan Sporting and Kerala Blasters will have strong claims to this, but surely the prize goes to Chennaiyin.
Owen Coyle, a bunch of talented Indian forwards, Connor Shields... there was enough to be excited about this Chennaiyin outfit before the season started, but it soon it fizzled out like a wet firecracker. Much like any hopes that India fans had of seeing the exciting talents of Gurkirat Singh and Kiyan Nassiri get some playing time (ideally in forward areas, but soon they were left hoping they get to just see them on the field some time). Can everyone involved reset and do better next season, please? And please let the kids play!
Biggest drama
Not in the ISL itself, but very much related to it. Thanks to an all-timer from the All Indian Football Federation, we still don't know who'll play the ISL next season as I-League winners. Astonishing stuff.