Inter Kashi host East Bengal in the Indian Super League on Friday, 23 October 2026, with the match starting at 5 pm IST. East Bengal are the reigning champions: on the last day of the 2025-26 season, on 21 May, they beat Inter Kashi 2-1 after a comeback to win their first ISL title. The venue was still listed as to be confirmed in the official fixture list, although some sites list Varanasi. The match is a third-round fixture of the 2026-27 season, which began with East Bengal winning 4-0 at Churchill Brothers. In that opening game Dani Ramirez scored in the second minute and Bipin Singh scored twice. Elsewhere in the first two rounds, NorthEast United beat Mohun Bagan 1-0 with a late winner in the opener, and Mohun Bagan then beat SC Delhi to return to winning ways.
The case for East Bengal as favourites is simple. The team won the league title in May by coming from behind against this same opponent on the final day, and it has started the new season with a 4-0 win in its opening match. A champion team that scores four goals in an away game has shown that it has the depth and the confidence to continue. The match against Inter Kashi, which is a rematch of the decider, carries an extra incentive for both sides, and East Bengal arrive with a recent history of winning it. A win would put them near the top of the table after three rounds.
The counter-argument is that the fixture list and the early-season table are uncertain guides. Sources disagree about the standings after the second round, with one report placing Punjab FC in fourth with three points and Mohun Bagan fifth without listing East Bengal, and another placing East Bengal fourth with three points, so it is hard to say how the table looks. Inter Kashi will have the motivation of avenging that defeat, and the home crowd in a match with a venue still uncertain may give them an extra push. A defending champion also becomes a target, since every opponent prepares specifically for it. A single 4-0 win over Churchill Brothers is also a small sample, and the early-season schedule has produced several close results in other games.
The title decider in May was played on the final matchday of the 2025-26 season, with East Bengal looking for their first league title, so the result gave the team a place in the league’s record books. The fixture matters to Indian football because a champion visiting a team that lost the title decider is the kind of match that draws viewers. For East Bengal, it is a test of whether the title was the start of a longer run of success. For Inter Kashi, it is an early chance to show that their loss in May was not typical.
East Bengal go into the match as champions and as favourites, but the details of the table and the venue are still unsettled. The result will say a good deal about both teams’ seasons.
Featured image: East Bengal supporters at the Salt Lake Stadium, Kolkata (file photo). Photo: Billjones94, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
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