“If I had listened to people, would’ve been done by 29” – Sunil Chhetri on whether criticisms influenced his retirement decision

India’s football icon Sunil Chhetri has revealed he would have been done by 29 if he had listened to people and had been influenced by critics. The veteran recently announced his retirement and revealed the match against Kuwait on June 6th, will be his last for India.

Chhetri had a glorious career for the Blue Tigers, scoring 94 goals in 150 International caps. The veteran is the fourth-highest goal-scorer in the history of International football after Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi, and Al Daei. 

Chhetri made his International debut against Pakistan in 2005 and savored great success in his career of 19 years. However, his career also had its ups and downs but he kept working hard to get the desired results at the top level.

Sunil Chhetri said in a press conference hosted by AIFF, “That [the critics] was a very small number. When I said the ones who wanted me to retire, the majority of them were well-wishers. It was not only for a few numbers who thought that I overstayed or should have retired early but for the majority of people who genuinely wanted good for me and wanted me to retire too. And honestly, no matter what category you are in, the onus is not on you. That was just a nice, big ‘I hope everyone is happy’. The decision was all mine. For the reasons that only I know.”

“I think when I signed for Bengaluru FC at 29 since then I’ve heard that ‘He’s done and he should finish’. So if I had to hear people I would have been done at age 29 or 30. Or when I heard again at 31, at 32 people were quiet, then again they started at 33. When 34, they were always shouting he should retire, at 35 they were a little calmer. It went on. So it wasn’t people; I don’t take the adulation and the criticism too much into my head when it comes to making decisions.”

India was shocked by Afghanistan as they lost by 2-1 and Chhetri revealed that he started thinking about retirement after two weeks of that disappointing result.

“It was 10 or 15 days after the Afghanistan game [in the World Cup 2026 Qualifiers]. I don’t know the exact date but that’s the time when I started thinking, after having the instinct of course, how I felt physically. What are our next goals? What is going to happen to the national team? What are the matches? How does it look? All these things were taken together and then I came to the decision,” he explained.

“One other thing that internally I always had, only a few of you would understand, is it is of prime importance to me that I bring value to the team. Sometimes it might happen because of who I’ve become that I’m still carried by the team. And that is something that I never wanted. The way you gaze at it is in training. In terms of numbers our GPS numbers, or what I bring to the table. It doesn’t matter how many years or how many games I played but till the time I’m here I add some value.”