[1]It’s all over for Central Excise. They lost the battle as well as the war in the Chennai Football Association senior division league here on Friday.
Excise will join Chennai FC in the first division after they lost to Tamil Nadu Police 0-3 at the Nehru Stadium in the three-team relegation playoff and decided to forfeit their match against FCI on Saturday.
It was just deserts for Excise who simply didn’t deserve to remain in Chennai’s top division. The coming days will be harsh for Excise.
The knives will be out over the four appointments they had made before the last season. One of them, Kali Alaudeen, ditched Excise for the lure of playing in the I-League.
Another person — a goalkeeper — was nowhere to be seen during the league. Will the Excise management answer all the uncomfortable questions?
Kali’s absence may be attributed to the player’s greed, but how would Excise explain the recruitment of the goalkeeper who didn’t even come to practice?
Football fans want to know whether a plum post in a central government department was frittered away.
For the first time in recent memory a team battling relegation has thrown in the towel. It doesn’t augur well for the league, even though the official reason trotted out by Excise is injury to five players.
It is an open secret that Excise would have had a mountain to climb against FCI, who had beaten TNP by a convincing 2-0 margin in the first match.
But Excise have accepted the inevitable without a fight.
Police coach M. Elango was delighted to have avoided relegation. His team had gone down under unceremonious circumstances two seasons ago and Elango was doubly cautious this time. Police lacked the sting in the final third, but they were streets ahead of an abject Excise.
Barring a first-minute chance off a corner, Excise never had a sniff of the Police goal. Police, on the other hand, created a hatful of sharp chances.
Forward K. Ramanan put them ahead in the fourth minute with an opportunistic strike. After controlling a pass from midfield, he held off an Excise defender and found the target with a composed finish.
Ramanan almost doubled the lead soon but his shot from the left was inches away from the far post. Ramanan’s fellow striker G. Sathish Kumar was a mute spectator when the ball whizzed past the target.
Instead of sticking his foot out, he preferred to watch whether Ramanan would score his second. Elango was, understandably, furious.
Excise spearhead K. Aseem had trouble moving around as he had been injured in the first-minute corner melee. Without the forward’s vibrancy, his team didn’t know how to break the obdurate defence of Police. R. Siva doubled the lead by the hour mark with a superb solo effort.
Clearly the best player for Police by a mile on the day, the midfielder gave no chance to Excise custodian C. Suresh Kumar with a delightful strike from the right. Siva added one more in the second half to put the match to bed.
The match wasn’t only horrendous to Excise; referee P. Vairamuthu and his assistant R. Venkatesh also had a forgettable outing. Vairamuthu, one of the promising young referees in India, was far from his best. He lacked consistency and authority.
His movements were lethargic, too. Vairamuthu wasn’t sure of his decisions on many occasions. Maybe he hadn’t prepared well for the crucial match.
The most glaring mistake of the evening happened in the second half. Venkatesh was in two minds about allowing a Police goal. He first raised his flag for offside only to lower it later.
Vairamuthu allowed the goal to stand but he changed his mind after protestations from Excise and consultations with Venkatesh.
There is no doubt that Vairamuthu and Venkatesh have the potential to make it big but the duo must guard against overconfidence and carelessness.
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