Chennai FC stretched the St. Joseph’s-CFA senior division league title race to the last day by beating Southern Railway 5-3 in its final match here on Monday. Following the win, Chennai finished on 26 points and Hindustan Eagles (25 points) will have to beat Chennai City Police on Thursday to be crowned champion.
In the event of a draw, a playoff between the two sides will decide the champion, while a defeat for Eagles will hand Chennai the title.
The police team, too, will have high stakes in the match as it is in 11th place and fighting for survival.
Chennai made heavy weather of what should have been a routine win. It was cruising 2-0 with coach Raman Vijayan, donning the player’s jersey again, giving it an early lead. But, it let Southern Railway level through goals from forwards Elamurugan and Riju.
However, the railwaymen earned two straight red cards in a 20-minute period to hand CFC the advantage again. It was promptly taken, with two goals from forward Hamza and one by Murugappan.
In the first division, a 2-1 victory for Income Tax over SAI brought it level with MSU on 23 points and necessitated a playoff between the teams to decide the second entrant, along with Chennai City FC, into the senior division.
The results:
Senior div.: Chennai FC 5 (Raman Vijayan 5, Edwin 22, Hamza 64, 90+2, Murugappan 70) bt Southern Railway 3 (Elamurugan 38, 88, P.C. Riju 46).
First div.: Income Tax 2 (H. Ameerudeen 40, K. Vengadesan 73) bt SAI 1 (S. Arun 66).