Gouramangi Singh once played for Chennaiyin, and his first ISL game as FC Goa coach is against them at Fatorda

FC Goa start the new Indian Super League season at Fatorda on Saturday, 10 October, against Chennaiyin FC, with a 7:30pm IST kick-off. It is Gouramangi Singh’s first league game as head coach, and he will be looking across at a club he once played for.

The former India centre-back, who won 72 caps between 2006 and 2013, was promoted in July after four years as an assistant at Goa. Manolo Márquez had left for Mumbai City, and Goa went for the man who already knew the dressing room. “FC Goa has been home for me over the past few years, and I am grateful to the club for the faith it has shown in me,” Gouramangi said when it was announced.

A bad night in Turkmenistan

His first big test went badly. Goa lost 3-0 to FK Arkadag in Turkmenistan on 12 August in the AFC Champions League Two preliminary stage, with all three goals coming in a 14-minute spell after the hour. That dropped them into the AFC Challenge League, and their group (Qadsia of Kuwait, Fortis of Bangladesh and Regar-TadAZ of Tajikistan) is played in Kuwait from 17 to 24 October. So Saturday is the only league game before a week away.

The squad has changed a lot. Dejan Dražić and Pol Moreno, two of the foreigners who carried them last season, have gone. In come Argentine midfielder Franchu, once of Kerala Blasters, Spanish forward Chiki and Spanish defensive midfielder Álex Vallejo, and Jorge Ortiz is back at the club four years after he left. Goa finished seventh last season with 20 points from 13 games, which was poor by their standards, although they did win the Super Cup for a third time.

Chennaiyin have rebuilt from the bottom

Chennaiyin were 13th of 14 last season with nine points, and they have torn it up. Fifteen first-team players were released, among them Pritam Kotal, Farukh Choudhary and Mandar Rao Dessai, and 17 have arrived. All of last season’s foreign players are gone too. The new five are Madih Talal, Brazilian striker Ramon Tanque on loan from Persib Bandung, Serbian midfielder Nikola Stojanović, former Mumbai City defender Nuno Reis and Rwanda international Emmanuel Imanishimwe.

There is plenty of Goa in this Chennaiyin side. Brison Fernandes and Ayush Chhetri have both moved from Fatorda, and head coach Clifford Miranda spent three years on Goa’s staff. He was the man in interim charge in 2020 when Goa finished top of the league after Sergio Lobera left, and he kept the job at Chennaiyin over the summer despite last season’s finish.

What to expect at Fatorda

The only meeting between the two last season finished 1-1 in Chennai in March, with Sandesh Jhingan heading Goa level after Irfan Yadwad had scored. On paper Goa should win this one. They have the better squad and they are at home. The catch is that so much of both teams is new, and an opening game between two sides that have hardly played together is often scrappy.

I would make Goa favourites, but not by much. Chennaiyin have good memories of this ground, too. They won the 2015 ISL final here, 3-2, with a stoppage-time winner. A point for the visitors would not be a shock, and it would not be the worst start to Gouramangi’s league career either, with Kuwait a week later.

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