Indian football is getting a lot more attention than it used to, says Sunil Chhetri

Indian football is getting a lot more attention than it used to, says Sunil Chhetri

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Sunil Chhetri feels that there has been a change in the amount of attention the Indian football team manages to grab which he feels has increased compared to yesteryear. The Indian team will kickstart their AFC Asian Cup campaign when they take on the Thailand team later in the day.

When the Indian football team had last participated in the AFC Asian Cup in the year 2011, the current skipper Sunil Chettri was the only man apart from Gurpreet Singh Sandhu to feature in that Indian squad. This might as well be Chhetri’s last Asian Cup appearance as the 34-year-old is not getting any younger.

“What has changed is that a lot of interest has been generated around Indian football. So there will be a lot more focus on us and it will be important to give a good account of ourselves. It’s not going to be easy because we don’t play a lot of matches against the giants of Asian football. But the good part is we are not afraid of any opponent this time around,” Chhetri told TNN.

In recent months, the Indian team has played out a couple of stalemates against the better raked Asian sides like China and Oman. The Indian team had travelled to China back in October and played a stalemate against the hosts. More recently in December last year, they once again played a stalemate against Oman who are ranked 82nd against India’s 97th position.

“We did well against some tough opponents like Iran, Oman and China recently. Those results have made us confident. We aren’t a team which enjoys a lot of possession and you won’t see us playing attacking football. However, I wouldn’t say our style is defensive. We do give a lot of thought in planning and analysing our opponents,” he added.

The Indian team will be playing the Asian Cup after a gap of eight long years. They begin their campaign today against Thailand and the skipper stated that they are taking it one game at a time.

“We are not even thinking about Bahrain and UAE. We are just focusing on our first game against Thailand. In the last 6-8 years, Thailand has been one of the most improved nations in Asia. They have shown how comfortable they are with the ball against big opponents. We have to make sure we defend in numbers and not give them that space”.

The skipper also said that he could have not scored any goals had there been no support from his teammates. Hence he praised the players like Udanta Singh and Jeje Lalpekhlua.

“My goals wouldn’t have been possible had Udanta Singh not made the 60-metre run against Myanmar or had Jeje (Lalpekhlua) not made the outstanding chip against Kyrgyzstan. When I step onto the ground I don’t feel the pressure that only I have to score as all my goals are a result of a team effort”.

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