India's football icon Sunil Chhetri announced on Thursday that he will retire from international football after the FIFA World Cup qualification match against Kuwait on June 6. The national team captain shared his decision in a video posted on his social media accounts. Chhetri has played 150 matches for India, scoring 94 goals in a career spanning nearly 20 years.
Sunil Chhetri will hang up his boots in the city where he began his top-flight football career for Mohun Bagan. Chhetri went on to become one of the most influential Indian footballers, with most caps for India and sits at the fourth spot behind Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi and Ali Daei in the list of all-time international goals.
Chhetri, who has led the senior football team to several laurels, was honoured with the Padma Shri, India's fourth-highest civilian award in 2019 and the Khel Ratna Award in 2021.
"There is one day that I never forget and remember it quite often is the first time I played for my country man, it was unbelievable. But the day before, morning of the day, Sukhi sir, my first national team coach, in the morning he came to me and he’s like, you’re going to start? I can’t tell you how I was feeling man. I took my jersey, I sprayed some perfume on it, I have no idea why. So that day, everything that happened, once he told me, from breakfast to lunch and to the game and to my first goal in my debut, to conceding late 80th minute, that day is probably that I will never forget and is one of the best days of my national team journey," Chhetri said in a social media post.
Known for his incredible goal-scoring ability and inspiring fitness levels, Chettri has been the torchbearer of Indian football in recent years.
"You know the feeling that I recollect in the last 19 years is a very nice combination between duty pressure and immense joy. I never thought individually, these are the many games that I’ve played for the country, this is what I’ve done, good or bad, but now I did it. This last one and a half, two months, I did it and it was very strange. I did it because probably I was going towards the decision that this game, this next game is going to be my last.
"And the moment I told myself first, that yes, this is the game that is going to be my last, is when I started recollecting everything. It was so strange, I started thinking about this game, that game, this coach, that coach, that team, that member, that ground, that away match, this good game, that bad game, all my individual performances, everything came, all the flashes came. So when I did decide that this is it, this is going to be my last game,
"I told my mom, my dad and my wife, my family first, my dad was, my dad was my dad, he was normal, he was relieved, happy, everything, but my mom and my wife straightly started crying and I told them, you always used to bug me that there are too many games, there is too much of pressure when you watch me and now that I’m telling you that, you know, I’m not going to play for my country anymore after this game.
"And even they couldn’t, they couldn’t express to me as to why they, they burst into tears. It’s not that I was feeling tired, it’s not that I was feeling this or that, when the instinct came that this should be my last game, then I thought about it a lot.''
