@IndSuperLeague season two takes off on Twitter

207 players. 30 countries. The Indian Super League came back with a truly global entourage for a bold new second season. On the back of a grand and colourful opening ceremony, defending champions Atletico De Kolkata (@atletidekolkata) kicked off proceedings on Saturday with an exciting 3-2 away win over Chennaiyin FC (@chennaiyinfc) that set the fun tone for the weekend. FC Goa (@FCGoaOfficial) then overcame Delhi Dynamos (@DelhiDynamos) 2-0 on Sunday.

Twitter proved to be the perfect social window to witness all this enthusiasm in real-time as franchise owners, players and fans took to Twitter for public conversations around the opening weekend.

93,000 Tweets with #LetsFootball & #ISL to start @IndSuperLeague 2015, up 20% from 2014!

http://reverb.twitter.com/view/404322312754027214

Opening Day Team Twitter battle (#LetsFootball)

A few hours before the game kicked off, @IndSuperLeague invited you to participate in a Twitter Battle to see which team comes out on top, by asking to Tweet using #LetsFootball and the hashtag of your favourite team.

Even the team owners and players dove into the fun, Tweeting to encourage fans to get behind their teams.

As the support for the eight teams started trickling in, a virtual map of India began to light up with the team colours:

The final results were collated with a visualization on this section of the ISL website.

Twitter MatchDay Wars

For every match in the ISL, you can Tweet in support of your favourite team to help them win the Twitter MatchDay War which has been brought to life by @SportzInteract.

Atletico De Kolkata won both on the field and on Twitter in the first match, while FC Goa won on the pitch and tied for Twitter battle honours for the second game.

You can also view an archive of the results for every match on this Match Day Wars section of the ISL website.

#ISLYatra

In the days leading up to the start of the season, you could Tweet memories of season one with #ISLYatra to move the official ISL football around the eight franchise cities to it’s final destination in Chennai for the first match.

You can catch up with the journey and the Tweets that fans sent throughout on this dedicated #ISLYatra page on the ISL website.

Taking fans closer with Twitter video

You can also catch up with behind-the-scenes content and warm up videos as the league account (@IndSuperLeague) and the eight teams make smart use of Twitter’s native video tool to take fans closer to their footballing heroes in real time.

Here is a selection of Twitter video Tweets from the opening weekend and pre-season.

Most followed footballers and teams

You can stay connected to a collection of voices from the league by subscribing to this Indian Super League Twitter list which includes the accounts of the league, the eight teams, Indian and international players, and the broadcaster @starsportsindia.

Some popular Twitter accounts of Indian and International players are listed below:

1. Roberto Carlos: @oficial_RC3 (Delhi Dynamos)
2. Elano Blumer: @elano_blumer (Chennaiyin FC)
3. Sunil Chhetri: @chetrisunil11 (Mumbai City FC)
4. Ashutosh Mehta: @ashutosh_mehta1 (Mumbai City FC)
5. Robin Singh: @robin_singh_23 (Delhi Dynamos)
6. Sandesh Jhingan: @sandeshjhingan (Kerala Blasters)
7. Sushanth Matthew: @SushanthMatthew (FC Pune City)
8. Jeje Lalpekhlua: @jejefanai (Chennaiyin FC)

You can also follow your team of choice below. The list represents the Twitter leaderboard amongst the eight teams ranked by number of followers on Twitter as of today:

1. Atletico De Kolkata (@AtletiDeKolkata)
2. Kerala Blasters (@KBFCOfficial)
3. Chennaiyin FC (@ChennaiyinFC)
4. Pune City FC (@FCPuneCity)
5. Mumbai City FC (@MumbaiCityFC)
6. North East United FC (@NEUtdFC)
7. Delhi Dynamos (@DelhiDynamos)
8. FC Goa (@FCGoaOfficial)

Which team will be the flavour of this season? We’ll find out as the real-time conversation around ISL continues to unfold this winter on Twitter. See you there!