Mumbai City finished the 2025/26 league phase with a comfortable away win in Kolkata, and the 4–0 scoreline told the story of two clubs moving in opposite directions.
A gap in quality and in depth
Mumbai City had spent the season in the leading group, with a squad built to rotate without losing shape. Mohammedan had spent it at the bottom, unable to turn narrow defeats into points. When a top-four side meets a team that has not won all season, the match is decided less by tactics than by the margin each squad can sustain over ninety minutes.
What relegation means
Mohammedan became the first club to be relegated from the Indian Super League, a landmark that matters beyond one club’s season. Promotion and relegation change what the bottom of the table means: instead of dead fixtures in April, matches at the foot of the standings carry consequences.
The wider picture
For Mumbai City the win was part of a third-place finish and a place in the knockout rounds. For the league, the season produced relegation for the first time and, at the same time, a title race decided on goal difference — two things that had not previously happened together in the competition.
The clubs’ profiles and the final table are both on this site, and the 2025/26 season is documented in full in our standings section.
