We want to put a smile on fans faces, says Chennaiyin FC coach Owen Coyle on ISL 2024-25 Media Day

Chennaiyin FC have bolstered their squad with many new signings.

The Indian Super League(ISL) 2024-2025 is set to begin on September 13th and goes all the way until May 4th, 2025. This will be the 11th season of the ISL and the football clubs are set to start things off with a positive approach. Talking about the teams, it is a pretty important season for Chennaiyin FC as the former champions will vie to get their names on the trophy for the third time.

Ahead of the season, Chennaiyin FC’s head coach Owen Coyle, and captain Ryan Edwards sat for a pre-season conference and discussed their approach for the ISL 2024-2025 season.

Owen Coyle on Chennaiyin FC’s last season and his plans for this season

Owen Coyle was asked about Chennaiyin FC’s last season, where the club qualified for the playoffs in the 6th position after not being in an optimum position throughout the league. He was also asked to give his thoughts on how important it was for him to make it to the playoffs mentally, even though his side didn’t go too far after that.

Coyle addressed the past six years of Chennaiyin FC in the ISL, where they managed to enter only two playoffs. He referenced the 2019-20 season when Chennaiyin FC went to the ISL Finals even after spending a good majority of their season languishing at the bottom of the table. 

He then recalled what happened last year, as he lost several top players but still made it to the playoffs despite the difficult situation. He praised the coaches and players and mentioned that he looks to build every year. The tactician addressed the difficulties in the first half with seven of the first ten games away from home but insisted that their priority is to put smiles on the fans’ faces.

Owen Coyle continued, “We look to build every year. Obviously, like, being all over the world, whatever league, whatever country you go to, there are big clubs everywhere. We have big, big clubs in this league, clubs that spend vast amounts of money more than anybody else.  And when you do that, then it gets you readymade players. We have a different model. We like to bring young players, young Indian players, get a great balance with very good experienced players, with quality, and look to go about it like that. 

And if you say you’re rightly so in the second half of the season, we get stronger as we win. And what we want to do now is allow ourselves to start well, which will be difficult because seven of our first ten games are away from home. But that’s the nature of the league. So we’re looking forward to it. We’re excited and we’ll get a great fan base and we want to try and put a smile on their face. That’s the important thing.”

On balancing the fixtures with only three home games in the first half

The Scottish tactician was asked about whether the league should look after balance, as the seven games give only less opportunity for fans to watch their team up close in the early part of the season when they need a lot of motivation. He elaborated, “I think in fairness, I have to balance that. In fairness to the league, I think our first home game was scheduled to be at home. I think there was a stadium commitment that couldn’t change. So I have to balance that. So that still resulted in six and four ultimately, what it does say to us is that we can start well, which is difficult because any game on the road in ISL is a difficult fixture.

“But I think we’ve got a good group of boys who are excited to play the part for Chennai and the bonus is similar to last year with the catch-up as well. But what happened was we got ourselves a bit of momentum and then we utilized those home games.

“So what we have to do in those only 10 games gives us a real fighting chance of being able to capitalize on home matches. We are positive about our outlook. We get a smile on our faces, be prepared to work hard and we are looking forward to another great season in ISL.”

Ryan Edwards on continuing with Chennaiyin FC

Ryan Edwards was asked about what motivated him to continue with Chennayin FC to get in shape for yet another season. The centre-back said, “Very excited. We’ve had a good pre-season for a few weeks now. So plenty of games as well with the trophy in Goa we’ve just played in and we’ve been staying hard behind the scenes as well back in Chennai.

“So obviously speaking about the fixtures being away, I think as well at the end of the day fixtures got to be played home and away. We’ve signed off because of what particular order we’re going to play them in.”

Edwards then said that he is looking forward to having a better start than last year, and said that nobody finished in the top six like we did last year. Coming back after beating Mohun Bagan after the March break seemed great. He said that having a great start is ideal and they are looking forward to that.

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