The 2018 Intercontinental Cup (known as the 2018 Hero Intercontinental Cup for sponsorship reasons[1]) was a 4-nations football tournament held at the Mumbai Football Arena in the Indian city of Mumbai between 1 and 10 June 2018. The tournament was organized by the AIFF as part of the senior men's team's preparation for 2019 AFC Asian Cup.[2] The tournament succeeded the Nehru Cup and developed post the Tri-Nation Series, where the then India head coach Stephen Constantine revealed that the intention was to hold a four-team tournament with India competing against teams from the Caribbean, Africa, and Asia.[3] India won the tournament by defeating Kenya 2–0 in the final on 10 June 2018.
The FIFA Rankings, as of 1 June 2018:
Initially, South Africa was announced to participate in the tournament but Kenya later replaced them when South Africa expressed its inability to participate.[4] The other two nations participated in the tournament were Chinese Taipei from AFC region and New Zealand from the OFC region.[2]
After a poor attendance of 2,569 for the first match of the tournament, Indian captain Sunil Chhetri uploaded a video[7] on his Twitter and Instagram accounts pleading for Indians to attend Indian football matches.[8] Chhetri's plea was endorsed by other sports people, including Indian cricket captain Virat Kohli, cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar, and tennis player Sania Mirza.[9] People responded to the plea by booking tickets for India's upcoming game against Kenya, and the game was sold out before the match day.[10] The match was Chhetri's 100th cap for India in which he scored a brace, leading India to win 3–0. The tweet was the most retweeted tweet in 2018, per Twitter India and was awarded The Golden Tweet.[11]
Star Sports did broadcast for the 2018 Intercontinental Cup (India) on Star Sports HD2 & Star Sports 2. It was also streamed live on Hotstar and Jio TV.[12]