Chennaiyin FC: History and Performance of the Club
Chennaiyin FC is a professional football club from Chennai which competes in the Indian Super League (ISL). The club’s home stadium is the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium. The club was founded in August 2014, just one month before the inaugural season of the ISL. The club’s owners are former India cricketer and captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Bollywood actor Abhishek Bachchan and Vita Dani.
For the first three seasons of the ISL (2014, 2015 and 2016), former Italian international and World Cup Winner Marco Materazzi was the head coach of the club. During this period, the team reached the semi-finals twice. They won the 2nd edition of the ISL (2015) defeating FC Goa in the final. In the next three seasons (2017/18, 2018/19 and 2019/20), the team reached 2 finals, winning one against Bengaluru FC (17/18) but losing the other to ATK (19/20). The team finished rock bottom in the 2018/19 season, winning just two games and losing thirteen.
Notable Indian players to have played for the club include the likes of Jeje Lalpekhlua, Anirudh Thapa, Jerry Lalrinzuala and Karanjit Singh. Jeje Lalpekhlua is the highest appearance maker as well as the highest goalscorer for the club. Anirudh Thapa is an exciting young midfielder who has been with the club since 2016. Jerry Lalrinzuala and Karanjit Singh are capped internationals since 2017 and 2010 respectively. Notable foreign players to have played for the club include the likes of Stiven Mendoza, Elano, Raphael Augusto, Alessandro Nesta and John Arne Riise.
Chennaiyin FC has considerable support base with average attendance of over 20,000 over the first three seasons. It has two fan clubs namely Supermachans and B Stand Blues. The average attendance dropped after the first 3 seasons.
The current head coach of the team is Csaba Laszlo, a Hungarian who played as a midfielder during his playing days. He also coached the likes of Dundee United, Hearts and the Uganda national team.
The club’s kit manufacturer is Performax and the shirt sponsor is Apollo Tyres. The club also has a Reserve team and an academy. Looking ahead, it looks like Anirudh Thapa will be the captain of Chennaiyin FC sometime in the future.
