Hindustan Eagles was crowned the champion of the St. Joseph’s-Chennai Football Association senior division league, which concluded at the Nehru Stadium here on Thursday, after it drubbed Chennai City Police (CCP) 5-0.
Since getting promoted to the senior division in 2012, this has been Eagles’ best performance; it had finished eighth in 2013 and sixth in 2014.
Babatunde opened the floodgates in the fifth minute with a nudge into an open goal as the goalkeeper John Roch Killbert had to rush to the left flank to ward off a wonderful raid by the combination of N.D. Opara and Rejin. Opara’s shot rebounded off the hands of Killbert and Rejin was quick to pounce on it and his cross was connected by the Nigerian.
CCP, though sloppy upfront, defended quite well in the first session stopping the two powerful strikers — Babatunde and Opara — from doing further damage.
Struggling to stitch together one good move, CCP suffered a major setback when Killbert pulled down a rampaging Opara outside the box only to receive a red card.
Chief coach Kishore was forced to wear the ’keeper jersey (Kishore replaced Jerald Febalas). Babatunde’s resultant direct free-kick kissed the top post and went out.
Eagles got into a wonderful rhythm in the second session, with the midfield and frontline working in unison and for CCP, playing with 10 men, wasn’t any easier and it struggled. Eagles capitalised on it with goals in quick succession.
Nandakumar’s blinder from 20 yards sailed into the net and then Opara darted past defenders to slot it home for the third goal. With the fourth goal, his second of the match, Opara showed why he is easily one of the best strikers in the league.
His thunderous strike from around 30 yards rocketed into the net. Babatunde completed the agony with a shot from close range.
The results:Senior div.: Hindustan Eagles 5 (Babatunde Ayomide Badmus 5th & 85th, Nandakumar 55th, N.D. Opara 66th & 70th) bt Chennai City Police 0; I div.: Challengers Union 2 (Manimaran 45th & Akash 62nd) bt Sporting Star 1 (Ramakrishnan 55th).