Indian Football: It Will Be A Long Wait For Another Sunil Chhetri

Who after Sunil Chhetri?

When legends hang up their boots, they leave a huge vacuum. It’s not easy to fill if it’s a sport perennially short of an assembly line that can throw up superstars routinely. Cricket in India can find a Sachin Tendulkar to fill the void left by Sunil Gavaskar or Virat Kohli to capture the vacuum created by Sachin, not so the case with football, a beautiful game that has not really taken off in India but should have.

Indian football does not produce players to attain the status of legend everyday. After IM Vijayan, there was Bhaichung Bhutia and after him we had Chhetri. There haven’t been many others in competition, unlike in cricket. So ‘Who after Chhetri?’ is a genuine query.

When Chhetri announced his retirement from international football earlier this month, drawing curtains on a bright 19-year-long career, the small football universe in India was not exactly shocked; it was sad. The call was inevitable. He was 39 and had to make a decision at some point.

Ninety-four international goals in 150 outings, that is some achievement. Only Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi and Ali Daei (now retired) are ahead of the Indian striker in the record books. It’s no small achievement for someone in a team ranked 121 in FIFA rankings which has never qualified for the World Cup. He was the face of Indian football which the world recognised. After him, there’s none. The Arjuna and Padma Shri awardee was also someone respected across sporting disciplines, from cricket to badminton to athletics.

Forget stature, that takes a long time to build. Who would bring his level of competence to the table and be challenging number 9? Will it be Vikram Pratap Singh or Lallianzuan Chhagnte, both wingers with Mumbai FC? Both are competent national players, but none has been tried as a forward, a role Chhetri excelled in. There are options in Shivashakhti Narayanan, Rahim Ali and Ishan Pandita. But none has been truly prepared for the centre-forward role in the Indian side.

Indian football may take some time to find someone settled in the role Chhetri was consistently brilliant at. It might take significantly longer to find another legend like him. Chhetri, meanwhile, can travel the country to make football popular and unearth new talent. His superstardom can help change the rather uninspiring football scenario in the country.

(By arrangement with Perspective Bytes)