“Indian football sucks” — many would have heard this sneer and jeer from football fans at home, fed on an overdose of European club leagues, the captivating African-style club stuff, and the FIFA World Cup. With the Euro football fiesta set to begin in mid-June in Germany, Indian football is just a footnote.
On Thursday, this footnote called Indian football became newsworthy. No, not because of any outstanding results registered but one man decided to hang up his spikes next month in Kolkata at the Salt Lake Stadium. You cannot take fish and football out of a Kolkatan or a Bengali, so the news of Sunil Chhetri, the Indian captain deciding to call it a day was, indeed, saddening.
Agreed, Indian football in this generation is not about the Dadas from Kolkata like PK Banerjee or Chuni Goswami, amazing legends. Indian football had to lean on the magical skills of, first, Baichung Bhutia and then his successor Sunil Chhetri to provide thrills and spills to Indian fans. To say that Indian football is dead and buried would be uncharitable.
After all, this is a sport where India has never been a worldbeater nor have they shown great improvement at the Asian level, including the Asian Games.
Ask any teenager or diehard football fan at home what Chhetri means, and you will get overwhelming responses.
In terms of sheer longevity and pushing the envelope, ISL included Chhetri has been a standout. To have played club football for Bengaluru and the Blue Tigers for 19 years is no mean feat. It is not his fault he was not born in Argentina, the land of Lionel Messi, or Portugal, a country which fantasises about CR7 – Cristiano Ronaldo.
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