FINAL PREDICTION: In a battle of nerves, this team has that extra zing to emerge winner

A FINAL BETWEEN FC Goa and Chennaiyin FC is pretty much the best possible conclusion that ISL 2015 could have asked for. It's an encounter that has quality, diversity, pace... pretty much everything that a football fan could ask for. 

The teams are a near-perfect mix of youth and experience. Both Goa and Chennai wisely invested in younger, more able foreigners that have the right kind of durability for a tournament like this. And the Indians in the squad are playing an important part too. 

So who will win this match? It's a complicated yet exciting million-dollar question that nobody wants to answer straight. But we at TFG, being the bravehearts we are, are going to give it a shot.

We'll start by saying that both these teams have played well enough to deserve the title. In our pre-season team analysis, we predicted that both these teams will reach the semi-finals at least and they did that and went one step further because they were, to put it simply, better than other teams. But when it comes to them facing each other, the situation gets a bit complex.

First off, the teams have a record of never having a home win against each other. By that logic, Chennaiyin FC should win this one easy. In fact they have a 100% win record at Fatorda. But the calculations, obviously, are not as easy as that.

There are several individuals in both teams who can single-handedly turn a game on its head, both in a good or bad way (Mendoza, Reinaldo, Dudu, Mendy etc). But when you look into the way Chennaiyin FC have progressed through the regular season, you'll find that whenever they have faced a team of comparable strength, the result has too often depended on whether or not the opponents managed to restrict Stiven Mendoza.

Let's take ATK as a comparable opponent. They beat Chennaiyin FC both times in the regular season when Mendy was not playing. Then in the first leg of the semi-finals, they got utterly devastated by the Mendy storm. In the second leg, Habas had Mendoza heavily guarded. He set the likes of Arnab Mondal and Tiri on him. His moment was restricted and ATK won the match, though losing on aggregate.

And what about FC Goa? Chennaiyin FC faced the Gaurs early in the campaign and Mendoza scored a hat-trick at Fatorda to clinch the game 4-0. And what happened in the return leg? Same story. Zico kept Mendoza under the watchful eye of Lucio and Gregory Arnolin. He didn't score and neither did Chennai. That's not to say that FC Goa did much better with their opponents' defence either. Both the goals they scored came from penalties. FC Goa do not have a single field goal against Chennaiyin FC in ISL 2015 so far. That's got to sting a bit.

And then there's Apoula Edel. Last year he was there in the ISL final, making superhuman saves and keeping ATK in the game in the face of relentless attack from Kerala Blasters. His keeping played a major part in getting Chennai to the final. This 29 year old from Armenia has a tendency to come alive on big occasions. And he is going to be Chennai's last line of defence. It won't be easy to get past him. And if the match gets into the penalty shootout, Chennaiyin FC will definitely have an edge.

But we at TFG don't think it's going to come to that. We are going to go out on a limb and predict an FC Goa victory by a narrow margin. We think Zico will manage to clip Mendoza's wings and the Chennai defence will have trouble dealing with the multiple goal-scoring players that Goa will push onto them. The home support will help them; let's not forget how it egged them on in the semi-final against Delhi when they came in with a 0-1 deficit.

Maybe it will be 1-0, or 2-1. But Goa will manage to get a goal in and then control the midfield. Because in a contest between a strong attack and an equally strong defence, the midfield is often where the game is won and lost, and FC Goa have a slight advantage in that department.