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Chennaiyin FC finished their 2018-19 Indian Super League (ISL) campaign bottom of the table after a 1-0 loss to FC Goa on Thursday, their 13th loss in the league stage.
It's quite alright for a club to finish bottom in the ISL as there's no relegation from the closed league. However, Chennaiyin's fortunes this season are nothing but shocking given that they were the 2017-18 ISL winners ie the ISL trophy holders.
John Gregory's side could not repeat their success from the past season, missing key players like defender Henrique Soreno and midfielder Dhanpal Ganesh. What's more, their star striker Jeje Lalpekhlua found the back of the net only once this season, a far cry from the 7 goals he had last time around.
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Even when Chennaiyin won the ISL in 2015, they had a poor outing the subsequent season, finishing seventh under Marco Materazzi. Back then, Chennaiyin had 15 points in 14 games with 3 victories, 6 draws and 5 defeats.
Even the 2015 runners-up, FC Goa, had finished bottom with 14 points in 14 games. They had shocking eight losses and 2 draws.
ATK finished ninth on the table with 16 points in 18 games last season, after winning the ISL in 2016. They had 10 defeats and just 4 wins and fired their manager Teddy Sheringham to redirect their fortunes. Sheringham's successors Ashley Westwood and Robbie Keane couldn't pull them out of the pile.
But this is the first time that the defending champions finish bottom of the table. Chennaiyin's tally of nine points in 18 games is the lowest for any side finishing bottom.
Coach John Gregory has confirmed that he won't continue next season but has the task of guiding Chennaiyin into the knockouts of the AFC Cup.
Chennaiyin join a select of league champions to finish in the bottom half of the table. These include Manchester City and Leicester City.
Here's our list of league champions who had a difficult time defending their titles.
Manchester City (English First Division)
Long before their exploits in the Premier League, Manchester City had a horrid time in the 1937/38 season of the English First Division.
City, under Wilfred Wild, clinched the English First Division, the club's first-ever league title, in the 1936/37 season.
City went 22 games unbeaten during that season with Peter Doherty finishing top-scorer with 30 goals.
After 42 games, Manchester City finished on 57 points with 22 wins, 13 draws and 7 defeats. They pipped Charlton Athletic to the title by a mere 3 points. In the same season, Manchester United were relegated to the Second Division.
However, what followed for Man City in the 1937/38 season was disastrous. The same Manchester City finished second from bottom. It was only because of their better goal difference to West Bromwich Albion that Manchester City were able to avoid finishing bottom. City had 12 wins, 2 draws and 7 losses in 42 games.
Leicester City (Premier League)
Leicester City shocked the world when they romped to the Premier League title in the 2015-16 season.
Players snubbed by other teams and labelled mediocre by many scripted a fairytale under manager Claudio Ranieri to claim their first and only Premier League trophy a few years ago. Ranieri was hired by the Late Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha to save Leiciester from relation in the previous season but he went beyond his job objectives to deliver the title in the 2015-16 season with a 10-point lead over second-placed Arsenal after 38 games.
Leicester couldn't maintain that spirit in the 2016-17 season. What didn't help matters is that core team player N'Golo Kante left and star striker Jamie Vardy couldn't find his feet in the 2016-17 season.
By November 2016, Leicester were just 2 points off the relegation zone in the Premier League, losing 6 of their opening 12 matches. Ranieri was sacked in February 2017 and interim manager Craig Shakespeare managed to help Leicester finish 12th by the end of the season.
While Leicester had 81 points in the 2015-16 season, they only had almost half of that, 44, with 12 wins, 8 draws and 18 losses. When Ranieri was fired, Leicester had only 21 points and were 17th on the table after 25 games. Shakespeare helped Leicester avoid shame and relegation by claiming 23 points from the last 13 games.
Atletico de Kolkata/ATK (ISL)
Atletico de Kolkata have won the ISL twice and defeated Kerala Blasters both those times in the final.
Their last title came in 2016 when the final was played in Kochi.
With Helder Postiga as their marquee player, Atleico de Kolkata qualified to the ISL playoffs after finishing fourth in the league stage.
They ousted table-toppers Mumbai City 3-2 in the semifinal and beat Kerala Blasters 4-3 in penalties after the scores were 1-1 at the end of regulation time.
Atletico, unfortunately, were never the same.
Atletico de Kolkata became ATK (a few even called it Amar Tomar Kolkata) in the 2017-18 season.
Even though the partnership with Atletico Madrid had ended, the Kolkata team continued to use the same jersey colours and just took the abbrieviation of that as their official team name.
Following the end of the deal, a lot of turmoil was expected but ATK did not give any room for that and went ahead and signed a big name, Teddy Sheringham, as the coach. Ashley Westwood, former Bengaluru FC coach who had delivered two I-League titles, was roped in as the technical director. An over the hill striker, Robbie Keane, was the marquee player.
ATK's first win came after 5 matches, a narrow 1-0 triumph over Mumbai City. They followed it up with a similar result over Delhi Dynamos and NorthEast United but then endured a four-game winless run.
Sheringham resigned after a loss to Chennaiyin FC but Westwood couldn't change the team's fortunes as well. Westwood resigned after a 5-1 humiliation at the hands of FC Goa with the team being unable to win in 5 matches.
Keane helped them win their final game against NorthEast United and helped the team finish one spot from bottom with 16 points in 18 matches, five more than NorthEast United.
Minerva Punjab (I-League)
Minerva Punjab's story is similar to Aizawl FC's 2016-17 I-League triumph. Minerva bid for a direct entry in the 2016-17 season as they could only finish second in the Second Division League. They finished one spot from bottom in the season of Aizawl's dominance but returned to take the league by storm in 2017-18.
Bringing Khogen Singh as the head coach, Minerva made smart buys, including signing a Bhutanese forward, Chencho Gyeltshen, and Ghanian forward William Opoku.
Gyeltshen was instrumental in Minerva's I-League winning run as he scored 7 important goals throughout the season to help them seal the title on the final match day. Opoku had 5 goals in 18 matches.
However, a majority of Minerva's title winning players left after the league victory. Rakshit Dagar moved to East Bengal, Chencho left for Bengaluru FC, Guy Eric Dano for the Calcutta Football League (Rainbow AC) and Bazie Armand for Real Kashmir.
Even the coaching staff was overhauled with Northern Ireland's Paul Munster joining as the manager.
Minerva were never the same. The counter-attacking flair that they possessed from the 2017-18 season was nowhere to be seen. They had an eight-match winless run after a confident 1-0 win over East Bengal.
Munster left just before Minerva's AFC Champions League qualifier against Saipa FC (which Minerva lost). Munster is now the head coach of the Vanuatu national team, while Sachin Badhade coaches the Minerva main team.
They have just 4 wins this season and the last one of that came against NEROCA. With 17 points in 17 games, Minerva are in danger of being relegated if bottom-placed Shillong Lajong win their remaining games and Minerva fail to recover.
Churchill Brothers (I-League)
Churchill Brothers were the champions in the 2012-13 edition of the I-League, thanks to remarkable man management by technical Subhash Bhowmick.
With Brazilian Beto as captain, Churchill took the league by storm and wrapped it up with a game to spare. With 55 points in 26 games, they were the overwhelming champions with 16 wins, 7 draws and 3 losses. Second-placed Pune FC had six losses compared to Churchill's 3 and finished on 52 points.
It wasn't an easy feat as Churchill had to deal with the departure of Bilal Najjarine and Akram Moghrabi midway through the season to overcome the odds in the 13-team league.
Churchill signed Sunil Chhetri on loan from Sporting Lisbon B and also brought in Afghani Belal Arezou for the second half of the campaign.
The 2013-14 season was a season of misery for Churchill. The same coaching staff continued but Beto was no longer part of the squad for Churchill. The Goan club had Anthony Wolfe as their main striker but could not repeat the success of 2012-13. They finished their league outings with 25 points in 24 games, managing to win just 6 times.
One of those was a famous 1-0 win over East Bengal but Churchill found themselves bottom of the pack. Even though they had the worst goal difference in the league (-12), a better head-to-head record helped them from finishing bottom.
However, Churchill anyway suffered humiliation as the All India Football Federation barred them for the next season for failing AFC's licensing criteria. Churchill took the AIFF to court over the exclusion and regained entry into the I-League in the 2016-17 season.
