Sunil Chhetri will retire from football, told when he will play the last match for the Indian team

India captain and talismanic striker Sunil Chhetri on Friday brushed aside speculation about his retirement, saying he has not set any deadline for calling it quits. Chhetri, now 38, continues to spearhead the Indian attack which can be gauged from his five goals in three matches in the ongoing SAFF Championship here.

“I don’t know when will be my last match for the country,” he said on the eve of India’s semi-final. I never set long term goals, I think about the next match, I think about the next 10 days. It (retirement) will happen one day and it will happen on a day when perhaps I don’t want it. But till then I don’t think about it. Asia’s second-highest scorer with 91 goals, Chhetri said he has set some criteria for himself to decide whether to retire.

He said, “There are some parameters that I think about. Whether I am able to contribute to the team or not. Whether I am able to score goals or not, whether I am able to train as hard as I want to or not. These are some of the parameters that will tell me whether I am a good fit for this team or not. The day I feel that it is not so, I will say goodbye to the game because then there will be no other reason for me to play.

Chhetri said, “But I cannot say whether it (retirement) will happen after a year or after six months. My family is also speculating about it and I jokingly tell them my figures whenever they mention it. Chhetri said that the Lebanese team is a very strong team and taking them lightly could cost them dearly. Recently, India won 2-0 over Lebanon in the final of the Intercontinental Cup but Chhetri does not want to attach much importance to it. “Lebanon is a very strong team, we have played them twice already. I think he must be thinking the same way about us and is trying to stay calm. We are doing well to recover from so many matches in such a short span of time.