CHENNAI: Every time something amazing happens in a game of football, people all over the world turn to a phrase, first uttered by Sir Alex Ferguson in Barcelona after Manchester United won the Champions League in 1999.
“Football, bloody hell!”
Coimbatore may pale in terms of footballing pedigree when compared to the Catalan city, the I-League sure is no match for the Champions League and there may have only been a few thousand people in attendance at the Nehru Stadium on Saturday. But it’s the beautiful game and it’s a miracle!
Chennai play in Coimbatore because they can’t get a stadium in Chennai — the one time they did, stadium rent became the biggest strain on their budget. They are based in Tamil Nadu, a region that is rarely mentioned among the hotbeds of Indian football. Their entire operating budget won’t buy them Mohun Bagan’s Sony Norde.
Yet here they are, champions of India, after a 3-1 win over Minerva Punjab. And they have done it in a manner that has defied what passes off as logic in Indian football. Their brand of football involve keeping the ball and outscoring the opponents — they scored 11 more than their nearest challengers East Bengal. They stuck true to their philosophy of giving opportunities to players from Tamil Nadu — five from the state started the match against Minerva.
Indeed, the first thing their owner Rohit Ramesh had to say after winning their maiden title was about how there were so many more footballers from the state who were now national champions. “Earlier we had names like Raman Vijayan and Dharmaraj Ravanan who had won the league playing for teams elsewhere,” he said. “But now we have eight more players who will have an I-League winner’s medal.”
That medal was not confirmed until the final minutes of what had been a topsy-turvy season. Chennai were undoubtedly the best team but their inexperience was beginning to show towards the end. They wasted a chance to win the title in their last week against Churchill Brothers, losing a match they should have won. And they conceded in the third minute against Minerva, with East Bengal waiting to lift the title if that score held. But a second-half penalty from Pedro Manzi and a couple of late goals from young Gaurav Bora led them to the pot of gold at the end of the proverbial rainbow.
Making the unlikely narrative all the more gripping are the kind of characters who are part of it. Akbar Nawas, the coach, braved the Chennai summer to watch CFA League games so that he could scout players for his squad. Their top-scorer Manzi was coaxed into playing outside his homeland Spain for the first time in his career by then-assistant manager Jordi Villa, a former Barcelona scout. Among their TN contingent is the talented Michael Regin, brother of Jamshedpur FC’s Michael Soosairaj, who had been stuck in the lower leagues for so long. One of the substitutes on Saturday was N Vijay, a kid from Vyasarpadi’s slums who started playing the game for a free lunch. And now all of them are champions of India!
Football, bloody hell!