Football: Sunil Chhetri’s legacy goes beyond the playing field

At the end of a football match, a group of college students made their way down from the stands and towards the players’ changing rooms. This was in late 2009 at the pre-renovation Cooperage Stadium in Mumbai, when tickets for I-League matches costed Rs 20 and a lack of security gave fans a chance to meet the players without any restriction.

The group walked towards the away team, Dempo SC, where a visibly annoyed Sunil Chhetri was inaudibly speaking to his team management. Sheepishly, the students approached Chhetri, and the mood changed immediately.

Chhetri encouraged them to come forward, and then smiled and posed for photographs – with an arm around the shoulder – with each member of the group. There was no resistance nor hesitance.

He was 24 at the time, but already seemed to know of his role as the ambassador of Indian football. A role he has carried out diligently for 19 years, across 150 international appearances for the Indian national team. A role he will carry out onto the pitch one last time, on June 6, when he leads India out at the Salt Lake Stadium in Kolkata, for a Fifa World Cup qualifier match against Kuwait.

From this writer’s memory of that interaction in 2009,...

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