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The Chennai franchise of the Indian Super League will be training in Bangalore until the first week of October as the pitch of their home venue, the Jawaharal Nehru Stadium, will be undergoing refurbishment, Sportskeeda can reveal.
Organisers IMG-Reliance have already assessed the pitch at Chennai’s Nehru Stadium and devised a plan for the refurbishment. The work on the pitch will start from September 12 and they are hopeful of getting it ready by October 5.
Until then the Chennai franchise will be training at the Bangalore Football Stadium. The 14 domestic players and some of the foreigners will be assembling in Bangalore on September 14 and training is expected to start from September 15.
Chennai replaced Bangalore as the eighth city franchise following the withdrawal of the Sun Group. The 14 domestic players were originally selected by the Sun Group while representing Bangalore but later they were transferred to Club Chennai.
At the international draft, the franchise was represented by Prashant Agarwal, CEO of Kshatriya Sports and Playon Skills, and they were in talks to sign Ronaldinho until the Brazilian superstar signed for Mexican club Queretaro FC.
The Chennai franchise has Bollywood star Abhishek Bachchan as one of their co-owners and a tie-up with Italian giants Inter Milan.
They are close to finalising a deal with Italian World Cup winner and Inter legend Marco Materazzi to be their player-manager but they intend to sign another big-name star as the marquee foreigner.
Chennai start their campaign with an away game against FC Goa on October 16 while their first home fixture will be against Kerala Blasters on October 19.
Note: Nationalities of foreigners in brackets
Squad
Goalkeepers: Abhijit Mondal, Shilton Paul, Gennaro Bracigliano (France)
Defenders: Gouramangi Singh, Dhanachandra Singh, Khelemba Meetei, Abhishek Das, Bernard Mendy (France), Jairo Suarez (Colombia)
Midfielders: Harmanjot Singh Khabra, Denson Devadas, Dane Pereira, NP Pradeep, Jaison Vales, Anthony Barbosa, Cristian Hidalgo (Spain), Bojan Djordjic (Sweden/Serbia), Bruno Pelissari (Brazil)
Forwards: Jeje Lalpekhlua, Jayesh Rane, Eduardo Silva Lerma (Spain)
