ISL 2018-19: Chennaiyin FC's season of lows - 5 League Champions who finished near Bottom the next season

Minerva Punjab (I-League)

Minerva Punjab players lift owner Ranjit Bajaj while celebrating their I-League title victory

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.