Youngsters playing every week is really important: Sunil Chhetri

by Siddharth Yadav June 10, 2017

After a successful awards ceremony conducted by AIFF (All India Football Federation) at Trident, four Indian players addressed the media – Sunil Chhetri, Jeje Lalpekhlua, Gurpreet Singh Sandhu and Sasmita Malik to conclude a memorable day.

Bengaluru FC and Indian Football Team Captain Sunil Chhetri was asked about the Indian Super League (ISL) and I-league merger. He responded: “Talks are going and it doesn’t make sense for me to comment. If you ask me for my thoughts then I’ll repeat myself what I’ve been saying every time. More teams, one league. If there are 16, 17, 18, 20 teams and there is one league in the country then that will be the best.”

“And on that note, nobody can object, you, me or those in the Federation everyone wants that. How to get there? I’m sure all the think tanks are working on it. As many numbers of teams are there fighting in a unified league or proper league, it is good for Indian players. More Indian players getting chances are good, more youngsters playing every week in, week out is really important,” he said.

Sunil also gave his views on a unified league: “It is important that we have 20 Udantas, 20 Jejes, 20 Gurpreet Singh Sandhus coming up every year. We have 1.3 billion people and we have to achieve that, imagine the state of football in our country when there 20 Sandeshs, Jejes etc every year coming up. That’s what we want and it will only happen if the kids get to play.

It very important that we have a league structure where kids get to play and get the best training throughout because if you don’t get enough game time, you won’t improve especially when you are young. So I hope the ones working towards it will do the needful and I just hope that there is a league where there are more number of Indian players.”

On another note, Sunil Chhetri praised his teammate Jeje Lalpekhlua and admitted that he is currently the best player India have right now. Jeje also won the 2016 AIFF Player of the year award.

“Jeje is the best player in the country right now. He has been outstanding for the country and whenever he plays we find ourselves in a comfortable position. He is going to take us places.”

Meanwhile, Jeje himself spoke about his latest form and goals. He said: “My target right now is to win the match against Kyrgyz Republic and boost our effort to qualify for the AFC Asian Cup,”

“I contribute my performance to my hard work off the pitch and it is very important for me as well to keep scoring and help my team in whatever way possible,” he stated.

Recently, India achieved their best ranking in the last two decades when they were place 100th in the latest FIFA rankings. It is quite astonishing as India were stuck at 173 just a couple of years back.

“It does give us a lot of happiness when we see our team in the top 100. But we don’t take it very seriously. When we were at 170, I spoke loudly that we aren’t 170 because we did well at times. In the same way, when you do well in an important tournament, you gain a lot of points. It does give us a lot of happiness but the most important thing for us is to keep winning games, especially in big tournaments.”

Indian goalkeeper Gurpreet Singh Sandhu who received the 2016 Award for Special Recognition added: “We can only take good points going into the match against Kyrgyz Republic. We don’t have to be cocky about winning seven games in a row, but aim to maintain our winning streak.”