ISL tactical view: Mendoza, Elano flourish in new formation for FC Chennaiyin

‘Elano’s beautiful pass finds Mendoza, who scores for Chennaiyin.’ This has been the standard protocol already for four of the six goals scored by John Stiven Mendoza in this season’s Indian Super League for Chennaiyin FC. Guess what? Each of Elano Blumer’s fours assists was for the Colombian striker. The understanding between these two has improved manifold this season and it is a pure joy to watch them exchange passes with panache at the edge of the opponent’s penalty box. Even when Mendoza tires occasionally due to his tremendous work rate, Elano neatly complements him by driving forward while the Colombian drops deep. The freedom that they both enjoy with regard to their positions has added a new level of menace to FC Chennaiyin. [caption id=“attachment_2300118” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File picture of Elano. Sportzpics[/caption] This has not come about simply by the efforts of these two alone. Chennaiyin followed last season’s blueprint of starting with two strikers upfront for the first two matches — first Jeje and Mendoza, then Fikru and Balwant. Both matches ended up with Chennaiyin on the losing side. In the third match against FC Goa, following the trend, Jayesh Rane partnered Mendoza. What has transpired since is that it has clearly provided more stability to the Chennaiyin team. Jayesh has started every match since. He is more of a left-winger who constantly tracks back to help the defence. His forays down the left going forward have served to stretch the opponent’s defence. He also floats in when the attack is from the other flank. One such move is what resulted in an Elano goal and another of his shots rebounded off the post for Mendoza to tap in. Thoi Singh on the other wing, who is also quickly becoming a crowd favourite, exhibits tremendous pace and guile causing nightmares to the defence. As a consequence to this change in strategy, the fullbacks on either side have been brought into play more often. The acres of space on the flanks usually were exploited by Bernard Mendy with his marauding runs forward last season. But this time around, he hasn’t had to worry about that. All four — Abhishek Das, Sena Ralte, Mehrajudin Wadoo and Dhanachandra Singh — seem happy to provide that extra width to the Chennaiyin attack. Dhanachandra’s Rory Delap-like long throw, adds a completely new dimension to the Chennaiyin strikeforce. The change in formation was summed up by coach Vivek Nagul, who in reply to a question from Firstpost said, “We wanted to try out different combinations. If this gets us three points every match, then we will stick to it.” FC Chennaiyin will hope to continue their winning ways in similar fashion.