Indian footballl player Sunil Chhetri. (FILE photo)
India’s national football team coach, Manolo Marquez, raised plenty of eyebrows when he decided to ask 40-year-old Sunil Chhetri to come out of retirement to play AFC Asian Cup 2027 Qualifiers against Bangladesh later this month. The Spanish coach, however, said his reason was simple – Chhetri’s domestic form and lack of goalscorers for the national team.
With 12 goals, this has been Chhetri’s highest-scoring season in the ISL. He has scored more goals in 2024-25 than the previous two ISL seasons combined.
“Sunil is the Indian top-scorer in the ISL, with practically double goals (12) than the next player, who is Brison (7). After that are Subhasish, Irfan, Manvir.. all of them are here with us in the national team. We need players who score goals. In my four matches so far, we have only scored two goals – one of them from a set-piece.”
The national team had a nightmare 2024 where they failed to win a single of their 11 matches. There was a humiliating exit for Croatian coach Igor Stimac and an attempt at revival under Marquez, who also failed to break the team’s losing streak—managing four of those winless games himself.
In preparation for the Bangladesh encounter, India face Maldives in Shillong on Wednesday in a friendly. It will also be a historic occasion as the Meghalaya capital will witness the Indian men’s team in action for the first.
India are placed in a group alongside Bangladesh, Hong Kong, and Singapore and only the top team advances. Marquez knows that winning matches is the only solution.
“At this moment, the most important thing is to get results. Nothing else matters,” he said, somewhat as a reasoning for getting Chhetri back.
India will hope that playing in Shillong will give them some advantage. The following there is exceptional and a packed crowd is expected.
Defender Sandesh Jhingan, who’s had an excellent season for FC Goa, said it’s great to be playing there.
“As a nation, we’ll be playing in Shillong for the first time, and that’s always an exciting prospect, especially since Meghalaya is a state that has a vibrant culture of football. We are eagerly looking forward to playing here.
“Our main aim is to get the result in the Bangladesh match, as that would give us a good start in the Asian Cup Qualifiers, and I think the 10-day training ahead of that, along with the friendly against Maldives will greatly help us prepare for it. Our target is two clean sheet victories,” said the 31-year-old, who earned eight clean sheets in the ISL this season.
