Sunil Chhetri: Looking to take the final bow with a flourish

For Igor Stimac, the Croatian World Cupper and senior Indian football team coach, one of the most frequently asked questions during his tenure over the last four years had been — when do we get a successor to Sunil Chhetri? He has failed to come up with an answer each time, neither have the followers of the game in the country.

Truth be told, there is much more than a daylight’s gap between the talismanic Indian skipper, now 38, and his current teammates — the youngest of whom could be close to almost half his age. The stark reality, coupled with the job of guiding the underachievers, does not deter the man who is the third highest goalscorer in international football among active players as he embarks on yet another tournament — the SAFF Cup — beginning with a high-profile contest against Pakistan on Wednesday.

It’s been an unusually busy time for the ‘Blue Tigers,’ as the team is nicknamed, as they travelled from Bhubaneswar soon after winning the Hero Intercontinental Cup on Sunday to Bengaluru for the regional tournament. The two tournaments call for a maximum of nine matches packed into little more than three weeks — but Chhetri and Stimac see this as an extremely valuable exposure in preparation for the Asian Cup finals in Qatar next January.

How demanding is it to keep himself ready for such a busy schedule at this age? ‘’I am ready for this phase with a smile on my face. Maintaining your fitness is the easiest part for me…the challenging part is to keep doing it without fail for so long, eat what you have to, and sleep well,’’ Chhetri said during a virtual media interaction on the eve of the Intercontinental Cup.

Little wonder, the skipper was at hand to put the finishing touches to a lovely move for India’s first goal in the final against Lebanon which they eventually won 2-0 — their first win against the West Asian side in almost 46 years. A strike, which took Chhetri to 87 international goals, trailing behind only Cristiano Ronaldo (122) and Lionel Messi (103). Lying in fourth position is Ali Mabkhout of the UAE with 80 goals followed by Robert Lewandowski of Poland with 78 goals.

It always acts as a morale-booster to lay one’s hands on silverware — especially for a team as starved of success as India — but battle-scarred Chhetri prefers to look at the bigger picture instead.  The upcoming edition of Asian Cup, billed as a World Cup of sorts for the continent, will see the regional heavyweights like Japan, South Korea, hosts Qatar, Iran and Iraq jostle for the top honours — but Chhetri & Co have acquitted themselves well to qualify for the finals for the second time in a row. 

They have been clubbed in Group B with Australia, a regular in Fifa World Cup finals, Uzbekistan and Syria and the odds will be stacked against them heavily. ‘’Looking back, I feel we had our moments in the 2019 Asian Cup in the UAE where we started with a win against Thailand but slipped up against Bahrain. Playing (and winning) against quality opposition like Lebanon would give us a good idea about Syria as their game is the same,’’ Chhetri said.

This would be the third Asian Cup finals for Chhetri, who was just beginning to flower as the next big thing in Indian football after Baichung Bhutia in his first bow in the 2011 edition in Qatar. The upcoming one in January would certainly be his curtain call in the showpiece, but he feels it’s a tournament where India needs to keep qualifying to raise the bar higher.

 ‘’We need to keep qualifying for the Asian Cup, it’s the ultimate for us. It helps you get warm-up matches against good teams and a chance to improve your rankings,’’ an upbeat Chhetri said. Like all good things, the Sunil Chhetri story is nearing the end, but the legacy he is going to leave behind in a cricket-obsessed country will be huge.  

A word of appreciation from Stimac, an integral part of Davor Suker’s third-place finishers in the ’98 World Cup, a couple of seasons back, still rings true for Chhetri: “Many people keep on asking as to when Sunil is going to retire. He works so hard on the pitch, and in every training session, he is by far the best. He is in such good shape and is working with such professionalism. He is working as if he is 25, playing as if he is 25, and scoring goals like he is 25.”