Chennai City FC

Chennai City Football Club is an Indian professional football club based in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, that competes in the I-League, one of the top flights of Football in India. The club was established in 1946 as Netaji Sports Club by five friends. The club spend its grand majority of history by competing in the local state and city tournaments but entered the national stage in 2016. On 11 December 2016, the team were awarded a direct-entry spot into the I-League for the 2016–17 season, and became I-League champions of the 2018-19 season.[1]

Chennai City FC
Full nameChennai City Football Club
Nickname(s)The Lions
Founded1946; 73 years ago (as Nethaji Sports Club)
GroundNehru Stadium, Coimbatore
Nehru Stadium, Chennai (most games)
Capacity30,000
40,000
LeagueI-League
2018–19I-League,1st of 11 (champions)
WebsiteClub website

History

The club was founded in 1946 as Netaji Sports Club by five friends, SV Kanagasabai, E Vadivelu, TR Govindarajan, PV Chellappa and K Ekambaram.[2] On 11 December 2016, the club was accepted as a direct entry club for 2016–17 I-League and became the second club from Tamil Nadu to play in the top division after Indian Bank team in National Football League.[3] On 6 February 2019 Chennai City FC had agreed for a partnership with FC Basel who now owns 26 percent of the club and would develop football in the state by building football schools for young talents.[4]

FC Basel will also have a player exchange program, including first team players, with CCFC and help the club with technical know how.[5][6]

On 9 March 2019, Chennai City FC beat former champions Minerva Punjab 3–1 to be crowned the 2018–19 I-League champions.[7] This marked the finish of a very successful season for the club, defying all expectations to win the league. Spanish-Uruguayan forward Pedro Manzi also scored a brace in this match, and was the joint top scorer of the league, scoring 21 league goals. This was Chennai City FC's first ever I-League title, and they represented India in the AFC Champions League.[8]

Chennai City FC also played in the Hero Super Cup during March–April 2019, and lost in the semi-finals to eventual champions FC Goa.[9] However, they did manage to win 2–1 against ISL champions Bengaluru FC in the quarter finals.[10]

Kit manufacturers and shirt sponsors
Period Kit manufacturer Shirt sponsor
2016—2017 Classic Polo Baako
2017—2018 Counter Sports —
2018—19 Penalty
2019—present Nivia TVS Group

Stadium
Main article: Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, Coimbatore
Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in 2018

The club plays its home games at Nehru Stadium in Coimbatore. Constructed in 1971, it is currently used mostly for football matches and has a capacity of 30,000. Prior to 2017–2018 season, the club played their home matches at the Jawaharlal Nehru stadium in Chennai. The club decided to play their continental matches from Ahmedabad.

Players

First-team squad
As of 24 January 2021[11][12]

Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.

No. Pos. Nation Player
2 DF  IND Shaji Antony
3 DF  IND Tarif Akhand
4 MF  SRB Vladimir Molerović
8 MF  IND Ahmed Sahib
9 MF  IND Vijay Thomas
10 FW  SRB Demir Avdić (vice-captain)
11 MF  IND Uma Sankar
12 MF  IND Charles Anandraj (captain)
13 GK  IND Kabir Thaufiq
15 MF  IND Vijay Nagappan
17 MF  IND Pravitto Raju
18 DF  IND Harikrishna AU
20 MF  IND Jockson Dhas
22 MF  IND Sriram Boopathi
No. Pos. Nation Player
24 MF  IND Ranjeet Pandre
26 FW  IND Syed Suhail Pasha
27 FW  IND Ameerudeen Mohaideen
28 DF  IND Pradison Mariyadasan
31 GK  IND Prateek Kumar Singh
32 DF  IND Lijo Francis
33 DF  IND Shankar Sampingiraj
35 DF  IND Jishnu Balakrishnan
36 MF  IND Varun Mathur
41 GK  IND Aryan Niraj Lamba
43 FW  IND Rajesh S
44 DF  SRB Elvedin Skrijelj
45 MF  SIN Iqbal Hussain (vice-captain)

Current technical staff
Position Name
Head coach Satyasagara
Assistant Coach
Team Manager Ashok Kumar
Goalkeeping Coach V P Sathiesh Kumar
Sports Physiotherapist Ragunath Manogaran
Video Analyst Aravind Chandrasekaran

Honours

I-League

Continental record
Season Competition Round Club Home Away Aggregate
2020 AFC Champions League Preliminary round 1 Al-Riffa 0–1
2020 AFC Cup Group E Maziya S&RC 2–2 – Cancelled
TC Sports – –
Bashundhara Kings – –

Team records

I-League
Season Div. Tms. Pos. Attendance/G Federation Cup/Super Cup Durand Cup AFC Champions League AFC Cup
2016–17 I-League 10 8 2,949 Group stage DNP DNP DNP
2017–18 I-League 10 8 8,194 Qualification round DNP DNP DNP
2018–19 I-League 11 1 6,138 Semi-finals Group stage DNP DNP
2019–20 I-League 11 7 7,825 DNP Group Stage Preliminary round 1 Group Stage
2020–21 I-League 11 - DNP DNP DNP DNP
Key
  • Tms. = Number of teams
  • Pos. = Position in league
  • Attendance/G = Average league attendance

Overall
As of 14 January 2017
Season I-League Asia Top Scorer
P W D L GF GA Pts Position P W D L GF GA Player Goals
2016–17 18 4 5 9 15 29 17 8 – – – – – – Charles 4
2017–18 18 4 7 7 15 24 19 8 – – – – – – Joachim 5
2018–19 18 13 4 3 48 28 43 1 – – – – – – Manzi 21
2019-20 15 5 5 5 20 21 20 7 2 0 1 1 2 3 Yusa 5

Head coach
As of 26 October 2020
NameNationalityFromToPWDLGFGAWin%
Robin Charles Raja  India 13 December 2016 8 February 2017 7 1 1 5 3 11 014.29
V. Soundararajan  India 9 January 2017 14 March 2018 13 3 4 6 15 19 023.08
Akbar Nawas  Singapore 15 March 2018 26 October 2020 38 20 9 9 68 49 052.63

Team

References
  1. Vasudevan, Shyam (30 November 2019). "I-League: Despite changes, teams gear up for new season". Sportstar. Retrieved 29 October 2020.
  2. "From Senior Division to I-League: The Chennai City FC story". 11 December 2016.
  3. "I-League Update: Chennai City FC and Minerva Punjab FC to play in the coming season". 11 December 2016.
  4. "CHENNAI CITY FC ROPE IN FC BASEL HOLDING AG AS STAKEHOLDERS". aiff.com. Retrieved 6 February 2019.
  5. "Federer's home club Basel to invest 20m euros in CCFC – Times of India". The Times of India. Retrieved 6 February 2019.
  6. "Der FCB und sein Bollywood-Farmteam – Basel steigt bei Chennai City ein". watson.ch (in German). Retrieved 6 February 2019.
  7. "Chennai City FC win I-League 2018-19 title, East Bengal finish second". indiatoday.in. Retrieved 9 March 2019.
  8. "Chennai City FC set to play continental games from Ahmedabad next season". Goal.com. Retrieved 19 July 2019.
  9. "FC Goa enter Super Cup final with 3-0 win over Chennai City". www.newindianexpress.com. Retrieved 10 April 2019.
  10. "Chennai City knock out champions Bengaluru FC from Super Cup". indianexpress.com. Retrieved 5 April 2019.
  11. "India - Chennai City FC - Results, fixtures, squad, statistics, photos, videos and news - Soccerway". us.soccerway.com. Retrieved 24 January 2021.
  12. "Chennai City FC - Soccer - Team Profile - Results, fixtures, squad, statistics - Global Sports Archive". globalsportsarchive.com. Retrieved 24 January 2021.
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