# 2020 I-League qualifiers

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

| Team | City/State | Stadium | Capacity |
| ARA | Ahmedabad, Gujarat | EKA Arena | 22,000 |
| ATK (R) | Barasat, West Bengal | Aditya Academy Ground | 10,000 |
| Rajasthan | Jodhpur, Rajasthan | Maharaja Umed Singh Stadium | 6,000 |
| Bengaluru (R) | Bengaluru, Karnataka | Bengaluru Football Stadium | 8,400 |
| Bengaluru United | Bengaluru, Karnataka | Bengaluru Football Stadium | 8,400 |
| Bhawanipore | Kolkata, West Bengal | Kalyani Stadium | 20,000 |
| Chennaiyin (R) | Chennai, Tamil Nadu | SSN College Ground | 400 |
| Garhwal | New Delhi, Delhi | Ambedkar Stadium | 35,000 |
| Goa (R) | Margao, Goa | GMC Stadium | 3,200 |
| Hyderabad (R) | Hyderabad, Telangana | Gachibowli Athletic Stadium | 30,000 |
| Jamshedpur (R) | Jamshedpur, Jharkhand | JRD Tata Sports Complex | 24,500 |
| Kerala | Thrissur, Kerala | Thrissur Municipal Corporation Stadium | 15,000 |
| Kerala Blasters (R) | Ernakulam, Kerala | Panampally Ground | 300 |
| Lonestar Kashmir | Katra, Jammu and Kashmir | SMVDSB Sports Complex | 2,600 |
| Mohammedan | Howrah, West Bengal | Sailen Manna Stadium | 15,000 |
| Mumbai City (R) | Mumbai, Maharashtra | Cooperage Ground | 5,000 |
| Punjab (R) | Ludhiana, Punjab | Guru Nanak Stadium | 15,000 |
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

| Team | Manager | Kit manufacturer | Shirt sponsor |
| ARA | Vivek Nagul | SEVEN | Amul |
| ATK (R) | Deggie Cardozo | Nivia | |
| Bengaluru (R) | Naushad Moosa | Puma | Kia Motors |
| Bengaluru United | Richard Hood | MS Sportswear | The Organic World |
| Bhawanipore | Sankarlal Chakraborty | Cosco | Sangbad Pratidin |
| Chennaiyin (R) | Santosh Kashyap | Performax | Apollo Tyres |
| Garhwal | Vikas Rawat | Vector X | ONGC |
| Goa (R) | Clifford Miranda | T10 | Adda52.com |
| Hyderabad (R) | Anshul Katiyar | Reyaur Sports | Jai Raj Steel |
| Jamshedpur (R) | Noel Wilson | Nivia | Tata Steel |
| Kerala | TG Purushothaman | Cosco | Yologans |
| Kerala Blasters (R) | Renjith Ajithkumar | Reyaur Sports | Muthoot |
| Lonestar Kashmir | Kenichi Yatsuhashi | Kaizen | Rising Kashmir |
| Mohammedan | Sol Campbell | Kaizen | TRAK Only |
| Mumbai City (R) | Mohan Das | Squad Gear | SportsAdda |
| Punjab (R) | Curtis Fleming | Spartan | Apollo Tyres |
| Rajasthan | Mangesh Desai | AIO Sports | AU Small Finance Bank |

### Coaching changes

| Team | Outgoing Head Coach | Manner of departure | Incoming Head Coach | Date of appointment |
| Mohammedan | Raghunath Nandi | 2019 | Yan Law | 2020 |
| Lonestar Kashmir | Miki Lladó | 2019 | Kenichi Yatsuhashi | 2020 |

### 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.
| Team | Player 1 | Player 2 | Asian Visa |
| ARA | Eze Stanley | Camara Bakia | Rajesh Pariyar |
| Rajasthan | Collins Patterson | | Muhammad Iqbal |
| Bengaluru United | Robert Primus | William Opoku | |
| Bhawanipore | Philip Adjah | Ansumana Kromah | |
| Garhwal | Bala Dahir | Ekomobong Victor Philip | |
| Kerala | Cyrille Brohiri | | |
| Lonestar Kashmir | Ellon Maxwell | Bema Coulibaly | |
| Mohammedan | Willis Plaza | Eze Kingsley | Abhishek Rijal |

## Preliminary round

* Tiebreakers
* The 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

| Pos | Team | Pld | W | D | L | GF | GA | GD | Pts | Qualification |
| 1 | Garhwal | 7 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 14 | 8 | +6 | 14 | Advance to Final round |
| 2 | ATK (R) | 8 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 10 | 9 | +1 | 14 | |
| 3 | Jamshedpur (R) | 8 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 7 | 9 | −2 | 10 | |
| 4 | Punjab (R) | 6 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 8 | 5 | +3 | 9 | |
| 5 | Rajasthan | 6 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 7 | −3 | 5 | Eliminated |
| 6 | Lonestar Kashmir | 7 | 1 | 2 | 4 | 8 | 13 | −5 | 5 | Eliminated |
* ↑ Due to the COVID-19 pandemic in India, a shorter format of the league was announced. Therefore, only the top 6 non-reserve clubs advanced to the Final round.
* 1 2 3 Reserves team are ineligible for advancing to the next round. To qualify for promotion, club must hold a 2nd Division license (marked in bold in the table), finish in the top 4, and either 1st or 2nd among the promotion-eligible clubs.
* 1 2 Withdrew team from the league due to financial and other constraits.

#### Results

| Home \ Away | ATK | GFC | JFC | LFC | PFC | RFC |
| ATK (R) | — | 1–4 | 0–0 | 2–0 | 2–1 | 1–1 |
| Garhwal | 1–0 | — | 2–2 | | | 1–0 |
| Jamshedpur (R) | | 1–0 | — | 1–2 | 0–3 | 0–0 |
| Lonestar Kashmir | 1–2 | 3–3 | 2–2 | — | 0–1 | 0–2 |
| Punjab (R) | 1–2 | | 0–1 | | — | 2–0 |
| Rajasthan | | 1–3 | | | | — |

#### Fixtures and results
### Group B

| Pos | Team | Pld | W | D | L | GF | GA | GD | Pts | Qualification |
| 1 | Mohammedan | 6 | 4 | 0 | 2 | 13 | 6 | +7 | 12 | Advance to Final round |
| 2 | Bhawanipore | 5 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 7 | 7 | 0 | 8 | Advance to Final round |
| 3 | Hyderabad (R) | 6 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 6 | 6 | 0 | 8 | |
| 4 | Chennaiyin (R) | 7 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 8 | 12 | −4 | 8 | |
| 5 | Bengaluru (R) | 6 | 2 | 0 | 4 | 8 | 11 | −3 | 6 | |
* 1 2 Due to the COVID-19 pandemic in India, a shorter format of the league was announced. Therefore, all the non-reserve clubs advanced to the Final Round.
* 1 2 3 Reserves team are ineligible for advance to the next round To qualify for promotion, a club must hold a 2nd Division license (marked in bold in the table), and finish both in the top 4 of the AIFF, and either 1st or 2nd among the promotion-eligible clubs.

#### Results

| Home \ Away | BFC | BHP | CFC | HFC | MDS |
| Bengaluru (R) | — | | | 2–0 | 1–3 |
| Bhawanipore | 4–2 | — | 1–0 | | 0–3 |
| Chennaiyin (R) | 3–2 | 1–1 | — | 1–3 | 3–1 |
| Hyderabad (R) | 0–1 | 1–1 | 0–0 | — | 2–1 |
| Mohammedan | 1–0 | | 4–0 | | — |

#### Fixtures and results
### Group C

| Pos | Team | Pld | W | D | L | GF | GA | GD | Pts | Qualification |
| 1 | ARA | 7 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 15 | 6 | +9 | 14 | Advance to Final Round |
| 2 | Bengaluru United | 8 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 12 | 6 | +6 | 14 | Advance to Final Round |
| 3 | Kerala | 7 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 9 | 7 | +2 | 9 | Pulled out from league |
| 4 | Goa (R) | 6 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 8 | 6 | +2 | 9 | |
| 5 | Kerala Blasters (R) | 7 | 1 | 2 | 4 | 8 | 14 | −6 | 5 | |
| 6 | Mumbai City (R) | 7 | 1 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 17 | −13 | 5 | |
* 1 2 Due to the COVID-19 pandemic in India, a shorter format of the league was announced. Therefore, all the non-reserve clubs advanced to the Final Round.
* ↑ Withdrew team from the league due to financial and other constraints.
* 1 2 3 Reserves team are ineligible for advance to the next round To qualify for promotion, a club must hold a 2nd Division license (marked in bold in the table), and finish both in the top 4 of the AIFF, and either 1st or 2nd among the promotion-eligible clubs.

#### Results

| Home \ Away | ARA | BUD | FCG | FCK | KBS | MFC |
| ARA | — | 1–0 | | 2–0 | 2–2 | 5–0 |
| Bengaluru United | 1–0 | — | 1–1 | 1–1 | 1–3 | 6–0 |
| Goa (R) | 2–2 | 0–1 | — | 1–0 | | |
| Kerala | | | 1–1 | — | 3–0 | |
| Kerala Blasters (R) | | | 1–3 | 1–3 | — | 1–1 |
| Mumbai City (R) | 1–3 | 0–1 | | 1–1 | 1–0 | — |

#### 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.
* Tiebreakers
* The 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

| Pos | Team | Pld | W | D | L | GF | GA | GD | Pts | Qualification |
| 1 | Mohammedan (C) | 4 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 7 | 1 | +6 | 10 | Champion and Promotion to 2020–21 I-League |
| 2 | Bhawanipore | 4 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 6 | 3 | +3 | 9 | |
| 3 | Bengaluru United | 4 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 3 | −1 | 5 | |
| 4 | ARA | 4 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 8 | −5 | 2 | |
| 5 | Garhwal | 4 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 6 | −3 | 1 | |

### Results

| Home \ Away | GFC | BHP | MDS | BUD | ARA |
| Garhwal | — | | | | |
| Bhawanipore | 2–1 | — | | | |
| Mohammedan | 1–0 | 2–0 | — | | |
| Bengaluru United | 1–0 | 0–2 | 0–0 | — | |
| ARA | 1–1 | 0–2 | 1–4 | 1–1 | — |

#### Fixtures and results
## Season statistics
### Top scorers

    As of 11 March 2020
| Rank | Player | Club | Goals |
| 1 | Syed Shoaib Ahmed | ARA | 7 |
| 1 | Ekombong Victor Philip | Garhwal | 7 |
| 3 | Dieye Hamidou | ARA | 6 |
| 4 | Shakir Ahmed Sheikh | Lonestar Kashmir | 5 |
| 4 | John Chidi Uzodinma | Mohammedan | 5 |
| 4 | William Pauliankhum | ATK (R) | 5 |
| 7 | Billu Teli | Jamshedpur (R) | 4 |
| 7 | Ronaldo Oliveira | Kerala Blasters (R) | 4 |

### Hat-tricks

    As of 11 March 2020
| Player | For | Against | Result | Date |
| Syed Shoaib Ahmed | ARA | Mumbai City (R) | 5–0 | 25 January 2020 |
| Mohammad Asrar Rehbar | Bengaluru United | Mumbai City (R) | 6–0 | 1 March 2020 |
| John Chidi Uzodinma | Mohammedan | Bengaluru (R) | 3–1 | 5 March 2020 |
| Syed Shoaib Ahmed | ARA | Mumbai (R) | 3–1 | 6 March 2020 |
| Ekombong Victor Philip | Garhwal | ATK (R) | 4–1 | 10 March 2020 |

### Cleansheets

    As of 11 March 2020
| Rank | Player | Club | Clean sheets |
| 1 | Srijith R | Bengaluru United | 4 |
| 2 | Iprotip Das | ARA | 3 |
| 2 | Priyant Singh | Mohammedan | 3 |
| 4 | Nitin Meel | Rajasthan | 2 |
| 4 | Raj Kumar Mahato | Jamshedpur (R) | 2 |
| 4 | Amrit Gope | Jamshedpur (R) | 2 |
| 4 | Ahamed Afsar | Kerala | 2 |
| 4 | Lara Sharma | ATK (R) | 2 |
| 4 | Sayak Barai | Garhwal | 2 |
| 4 | Antonio da Silva | Goa (R) | 2 |

## Average home attendances

    As of 11 March 2020
| Team | GP | Cumulative | High | Low | Mean |
| F.C. Kerala | 2 | 900 | 700 | 200 | 450 |
| ARA | 4 | 1150 | 450 | 150 | 287 |
| Bhawanipore | 3 | 395 | 300 | 20 | 131 |
| Rajasthan | 2 | 200 | 200 | 200 | 200 |
| Lonestar Kashmir | 4 | 567 | 350 | 52 | 141 |
| Garhwal | 3 | 1400 | 550 | 350 | 466 |
| Mohammedan | 2 | 1400 | 1200 | 200 | 700 |
| Bengaluru United | 4 | 1050 | 450 | 150 | 262 |
| ATK (R) | 5 | 1201 | 700 | 50 | 240 |
| Goa (R) | 4 | 1250 | 500 | 200 | 312 |
| Mumbai City (R) | 4 | 760 | 200 | 160 | 190 |
| Kerala Blasters (R) | 3 | 360 | 250 | 50 | 120 |
| Bengaluru (R) | 2 | 555 | 455 | 100 | 277 |
| Chennaiyin (R) | 4 | 215 | 100 | 25 | 53 |
| Hyderabad (R) | 3 | 375 | 200 | 50 | 125 |
| Punjab (R) | 3 | 465 | 250 | 105 | 155 |
| Jamshedpur (R) | 4 | 697 | 237 | 60 | 174 |
| Total | 54 | 12,940 | 1200 | 20 | 239 |