Sunil Chhetri retires from football

Indian football team skipper Sunil Chhetri announced his retirement from international football. Chhetri’s last match in Indian Blues will be the FIFA World Cup Qualifier against Kuwait on June 6.

The 39-year-old has played 150 times for India and has scored 94 goals in a career spanning almost 20 years.

The Indian football team captain took to social media to announce the decision and was emotional in the video message.

“The feel, that I recollect in the last 19 years is a very nice combination of duty, pressure and immense joy. I never thought individually these are the games I’ve played for the country, this is what I’ve done good, I’ve done bad. But, now I did it, this last one-and-a-half two months. It felt very strange. I did it because I was going towards the decision that the next game was going to be my last. Every training that I do with the national team, I just want to enjoy. The game against Kuwait demands pressure, we need the three points to qualify for the next round. It’s hugely important for us. But, in a strange way, I don’t feel the pressure because these 15-20 days with the national team and the match against Kuwait is the last,” Chhetri said.

The 39-year-old said he came to the decision to call it a day after a lot of thought. “It’s not that I was feeling tired. I was feeling this or that. When the instinct came that this should be my last game, I thought about it a lot and eventually I came to this decision,” he said.

The Indian captain said he has received a lot of love from his fans and added that the time is ripe to see another Indian ‘number nine.’ “I’ll say something controversial. I don’t think I know any player who has received more love, affection and adulation from the fans in our country than me. A lot of times people talk about the highest scorer, this or that, but the one thing that I think I’ve really got the best of, and I was really pampered, is the love and affection I got. It’s time for our country to see the next number nine,” Chhetri opined.

Sunil Chhetri will leave international football as India’s most-capped player, India’s all-time top scorer and third in the list of international goal scorers among active players behind Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi.