A near-full crowd at the iconic Salt Lake Stadium in Kolkata watched the Indian national football team qualify for the 2023 AFC Asian Cup in style, beating Hong Kong 4-0 on Tuesday.
Skipper Sunil Chhetri has expressed his desire to play the Asian Cup on home soil after being impressed by the spectators who came to support the Blue Tigers braving the storm.
“The kind of shape we are in, we would have loved to play at home. The way the fans are coming in and supporting us in numbers, it would be great to play here,” Chhetri said after India secured a second qualification consecutive. at the Asian Cup for the first time in history.
India beat Cambodia and Afghanistan before earning a convincing victory over Hong Kong in Group D of the third round of Asian Cup qualifiers. All games were played at Salt Lake Stadium, where India played at home for the first time in more than two years.
Chhetri hailed the rise of youngsters in the national team during the three-match campaign. “The kids are just amazing, they’ll probably kill me for calling the kids, the boys are fantastic. We have the right mix of senior and junior players in the dressing room. You also have Liston (Colaco) and Suresh (Wangjam) with Akash (Mishra) and Roshan (Singh) who were brilliant.
“So yeah, a lot of youngsters are coming, and Ishan (Pandita) has also been outstanding in training, and look what he did today. Ishan and Sahal (Abdul Samad) are two players who deserve nights like this one,” Chhetri said. , who scored the second goal of the night while Anwar Ali, Manvir Singh and Ishan Pandita got their names on the scoresheet.
Chhetri is set to play in his third Asian Cup tournament final after previous appearances in 2011 and 2019. Despite being 37, the striker feels at his peak now.
“Now I’m reaching my peak. The last Asian Cup has already passed. We really want to work hard. It doesn’t matter in the next big tournaments, I’m there or someone else gets the green light, the India should be there at the Asian Cup,” I said before. It is essential for us as a nation to continue to be at the Asian Cup so that we can rub shoulders with the best in India, which is not very often. It gives us a chance to play friendlies with higher ranked opponents ahead of the tournament,” the talismanic striker said.
After scoring his 84th goal in national colors against Hong Kong, Chhetri equaled Hungary legend Ferenc Puskas in the all-time international goalscoring list, where he currently sits fifth. However, the Bengaluru FC man has revealed that he doesn’t pay too much attention to records.
“It feels good, but you have to keep going. I really don’t think too much about records. I know that given the number of games I’ve played for the country, I don’t have many left. I want there go out there and enjoy every game. I want to slide, I want to run and I want to do everything I can because I know it’s not going to last very long. It’s absolutely the best thing that can happen to my my life – playing for my country. It’s an absolute honour, in every aspect,” concluded Chhetri.
(To receive our electronic document daily on WhatsApp, please click here. To receive it on Telegram, please click here. We allow sharing of the PDF of the document on WhatsApp and other social media platforms.)
