Chennaiyin FC made it to the final of the 2015 Hero Indian Super League on Wednesday after beating defending champions Atlético de Kolkata 4-2 on aggregate in what has been a campaign of exhilarating highs and heart-wrenching lows. The Super Machans, who topped the league stage last year before crashing out of the semis, didn’t exactly have the smoothest road to the semis this time around. In fact, Chennai’s chances of qualifying for the semis were in great peril after a run of results that saw them languishing at the bottom of the league after 10 matches when Atlético de Kolkata beat them 2-1 in their second encounter of the season at the Salt Lake Stadium in Kolkata on November 18. At that stage not many were willing to put their money on Marco Materazzi’s men to qualify for the semis, let alone the final.The Super Machans though had other plans and showed the necessary strength of character to arrest their slide in the league. Materazzi’s men, who had just lost their marquee player Elano to injury in the defeat to Kolkata, didn’t stick to the script that would have seen them become the first team to the exit the league by digging deep and putting together a brilliant run of results against all odds to claw their way back into the semis.It all started on November 21 against Kerala Blasters FC when Stiven Mendoza netted his second hat-trick of the season to lift the Super Machans off the bottom of the table in the wake of a 4-1 win. They followed their win against Kerala with another convincing display against a high-flying Delhi Dynamos FC side that saw them put the Lions to the sword by a 4-0 score-line. Chennai’s next victims in their last-gasp rally to the semis were Mumbai City FC whom they beat 3-0 in their last home match of the league stage. This sequence of results that had seen them win three games in succession and score 11 goals in the process was, however, still not enough to guarantee them a spot in the semis. Everything hinged on the penultimate match of the league stage as they travelled to the Shree Shiv Chhatrapati Sports Complex Stadium in Pune to take on FC Pune City. Chennai needed a draw to leapfrog NorthEast United FC who were occupying the last qualification spot for the semis but the Super Machans left nothing to chance and became the only team this season to register four wins in a row by beating the Stallions 1-0 and entering the semi-finals. Their opponents for the semi-finals were none other than defending champions Atlético de Kolkata who had done the double over them during the league stage. To stack the odds against them even further, Chennaiyin FC had to play the home leg of their semi-final clash at Pune due to devastating floods in Chennai. But Chennai were not there just make up the numbers against the reigning champions and showed defiance in the face of adversity as they beat Antonio Lopez Habas’ men with a convincing score line of 3-0 and became the first team in the history of the league to record five wins on the trot.The southern-outfit though were not out of the woods yet as they travelled to Kolkata for the return leg in front of a feisty crowd at the Salt Lake Stadium. The tension was palpable and could be cut with a knife as Iain Hume made it 2-0 for ATK three minutes from time. Fikru Teferra, on the other hand, had other ideas as he came off the bench to score Chennai’s goal in stoppage time and give them an unassailable 4-2 advantage on aggregate, thereby paving their way into the final. Head coach Materazzi summed up his side’s incredible journey into the final in lucid fashion while commenting on the incredible belief within the squad in his post-match press conference. “After all the consecutive losses, we made it our strength. I always knew the potential of my players. For me they were best players in the league and it just had to come out at a certain point and it did luckily at the right point,” the former Italy international said.Chennai now probably face their toughest test yet in the form of FC Goa in the grand finale at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in Fatorda on Sunday. They had beaten the Gaurs 4-0 earlier in the season but that’s a thing of the past now as the Gaurs have since become a major force to reckon with and playing at home will give them added advantage. Can Materazzi’s men replicate the win at Fatorda and be the new kings? Only time will tell.
