CHENNAI: On Wednesday, the Chennai City story will have its denouement when I-League officials finally hand over the trophy to them. Holding the trophy aloft will be a player whose goals have played the biggest part in the title triumph — club captain Pedro Manzi. Waiting to get their hands on it will be his all-Spanish supporting cast — Roberto Eslava, Nestor Gordillo and Sandro Rodriguez.
To say that Chennai City won simply because they had better foreign players would be oversimplifying things and disregarding the impact that coach Akbar Nawas had on the team. But that was perhaps the biggest of the many factors. Manzi and his fellow Spaniards created some amazing numbers over the season.
Manzi netted 21 of the 48 goals that his club scored, finishing joint-top scorer of the I-League. Winger Nestor scored eight and created nine more. Sandro scored nine and assisted seven. Even Eslava, a central defender by trade, scored a couple. That’s 40 out of 48.
The man behind bringing this quartet — as well as goalkeeper Nauzet Garcia Santana who was replaced towards the end of the season due to injury — is no longer with club. Jordi Vila Gris, a former Barcelona and Manchester City scout, had started the season as Akbar Nawas’ assistant, before netting a role as an assistant coach at MLS side New York City FC. The Spaniards that he eventually brought to Chennai City were all players who had been on his list for a long time.
“Eslava started his career in Telde’s academy,” says Jordi. “I noticed him when he played for the B side of Las Palmas. It was 2009 and he was playing in the 2B division (third tier of Spanish football). From 2011 to 2018, he was playing for top teams in the Tercera Division (fourth tier), always one of the top players. Eslava deserved more, but football is not always fair.”
Football was even less fair to another of Jordi’s finds. Back when he was a Barca scout, he was keeping the club informed about how Sandro was developing. “He was close to arriving at Barcelona when I worked as a scout there,” says Jordi. “But a serious injury stopped him at his best moment, when some of the top clubs in Spain were interested in him.”
Nestor too was a case of someone who was so near yet so far to playing in the top flight. “When he was at Tenerife’s academy, I was scouting him for Barcelona. He was in that list of players that we could sign,” says Jordi. But a short stint at Atletico Madrid’s B team in 2016 was the closest Nestor came to La Liga. Along the way, he found himself at Las Palmas B alongside Sandro. Manzi though was a different story.
“He was a top player but he never had a chance with the biggest clubs,” Jordi remembers. For nearly a decade, Manzi drifted through various lower league teams scoring bucket loads of goals everywhere. One of his many stops was at CD Marino where he played alongside future Chennai City teammates Elsava and Sandro.
Curiously, coming to India was the first time he had opted to move abroad. “He had offers before to leave Spain, especially from North European countries,” Jordi says. “But he always refused them.”
But when Jordi called him to India, Manzi heeded it. And the rest, as they say, is history.