Monday, October 24, 2016

Freelancing for FirstPost: ISL 2016

Firstpost were willing to give me another chance to cover the Indian Super League for this year. I was not sure of attending all the home matches, but covering by watching on Television was still alright with them. So I began my second stint at Freelancing with a preview for Chennaiyin FC for ISL 2016.

Just before Chennaiyin FC had their first match, Firstpost asked me to pick some players to watch out for and I wrote on three players who could make a change to Chennaiyin FC this year. Soon the first Chennaiyin FC game was upon me. This was away at Kolkata. Chennaiyin came back from a goal down to take the lead and finally conceded a penalty to end the pulsating match in a draw. I wasn't happy with the Chennaiyin formation and actually wrote it as six takeaways. The headlines from now were not mine mostly.

My misgivings in the first game came true when Delhi Dynamos FC thrashed us soundly in the first home game. The Mendy-Riise partnership had to end. The defense, goalie and the manager were all under fire in the five takeaways that I wrote from the match. I couldn't make it to the stadium that day as I had some submissions to work on for the next day at my Elementary course.

Firstpost asked me to write on some early trends emerging from the first two rounds of ISL 2016. Initially I wrote it in a hurry and it turned out to be too short. So I beefed it up a bit and it came out after my analysis on Chennaiyin's home victory against FC Goa. I attended the match and was there at the press conference. Zico was flustered about signings made in his absence and was bullish about Goa's chances of recovering.

Marco Materazzi on the other hand, when I questioned on how Jeje and him felt about Jeje's omission, went on a tangent to explain some journalists all over the world aren't happy about team selections. It was a day when Chennaiyin, for the first time for any team in ISL, had Mehrajuddin Wadoo as captain and ended the game with 7 Indians. He later gave me a nose-cut when I called his formation a 4-2-3-1. It was a 4-4-1-1 apparently. Credit is due to him though for getting his formation right and I wrote my analysis praising him for the changes.

Then came two away matches. The first, a hard fought win against Northeast United FC for the first ever time in ISL history for Chennaiyin FC. The new found solid defense played a huge role and I had four more positives to write about from the match. Then came a 1-1 draw against FC Pune City. That match really emphasized that Chennaiyin FC can threaten with anyone really. This match saw the sixth different goalscorer from a sixth different assist provider  for what was Chennaiyin FC's seventh goal of the season in just 5 matches.

P.S: I will keep adding to this post as and when I write more.


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