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  Chennaiyin, Goa face off eyeing first win

Chennaiyin, Goa face off eyeing first win

Published : Oct 13, 2016, 2:23 am IST
Updated : Oct 13, 2016, 2:23 am IST

Action from the ISL 3 match between FC Pune City and NorthEast United FC in Pune on Wednesday. NE United won 1-0. (Photo: ISL)

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 12ISL.jpg

Action from the ISL 3 match between FC Pune City and NorthEast United FC in Pune on Wednesday. NE United won 1-0. (Photo: ISL)

It’s a little too early in the season for hosts and defending champions Chennaiyin FC to be even contemplating pressing the one button that most would like to avoid — panic. Agreed, this wasn’t how they would have envisaged their title defence would get off to, but if there is one silver lining amidst the gloom, it is that their opponents on Thursday, FC Goa find themselves in the same rickety boat.

In fact, Goa are in an even inferior position having lost both their opening fixtures and another defeat may just force their manager Zico into cracking the whip on his errant pupils. Or, who knows, if the circumstances call for it, the 63-year-old Brazilian dubbed the “White Pele”, may be tempted to trade his coaching role for the vocation that first made him a global icon!

And Goa more than any other team should know well that there is no greater folly than to write off Chennaiyin, who are past masters at rousing themselves from a situation where no other team would even dare think of waging a rearguard action.

Whereas most fair-weather teams would readily wave white flags and head to the dressing room to lick their bruised pride, Chennaiyin’s track record suggests that they thrive when they look adversity in the eye.

Nowhere was this admirable gumption made itself more prominent than when they were staring down the barrel for much of last season and could see nothing but the wall behind their collective backs, and yet they didn’t flinch as they kept beavering away till the very end. Even the hardcore atheists among the Chennaiyin fans will be fervently and privately praying that their team will exude the same virtues for another season!