Sunil Chhetri is back.
273 days after bidding a tearful goodbye on an emotionally charged night at the Salt Lake stadium, India's greatest ever has decided to... un-retire. He'd announced his plans to step back about a month before, via a 9 minute 51 second video released on his social media channels (the last tweet from his official X account) and till that last game of his, and for quite some days after, that's all anyone in Indian football could talk about. Of course, it was. The biggest question asked then was: 'Who will replace Sunil Chhetri?'
Ever since retiring, Chhetri has been speaking about the pangs of regret he gets when thinking of, or is watching, the India team. About how they would have been huddled up in the team hotel ahead of matches, about training, about the camps, about wearing that blue he made his own for two decades in the matches themselves. Looks like one of those pangs really hit home.
Without him, India had scored three goals in five games, and not won any of them (2L, 3D). Without a frontline striker of note, head coach Manolo Marquez has then turned to the man who scored 49% of all of India's goals between 2019-2024 (37% across the length of his 19-year career), the man who will turn 41 this August.
Look at those numbers, disregard the retirement (and the age), and this makes perfect sense. Chhetri is the top-scoring Indian in the ISL, and that by about one thousand kilometres. He's got 12 goals, the second-most of anyone in the league. The next best performing Indians are potential NT debutante Brison Fernandes with 7 and... Subhasish Bose (?) with 6. These three are the only Indians in the top 25. Expand it to goal involvements, and Chhetri's goal involvements (14) puts him third in the league. He's the only Indian in the top 15. The next closest are Brison and Manvir Singh (9 each). The numbers, the impact, the visceral threat of his mere presence on an ISL field... it's still not even up for a debate who the best footballer in this country is.
𝐒𝐔𝐍𝐈𝐋 𝐂𝐇𝐇𝐄𝐓𝐑𝐈 𝐈𝐒 𝐁𝐀𝐂𝐊. 🇮🇳
The captain, leader, legend will return to the Indian national team for the FIFA International Window in March.#IndianFootball ⚽ pic.twitter.com/vzSQo0Ctez
- Indian Football Team (@IndianFootball) March 6, 2025
But can you really disregard either the retirement or the age? For this was a big, big deal. Chhetri hadn't retired on a whim, or on the back of a spat with management. One of the most careful planners in Indian sport had calculated everything, realised the time was right and decided to say goodbye. For him, and the team. However impossible it was going to be to replace him, the national team had to try -- at 40, there is a very small window of football left at that level, and if not now, when would you experiment, when would you find out?
It's that catch-22 situation that gives this news such a scratchy feeling. Of course, he's still the best. Of course, he's in form. Of course, he'll give the team an immediate injection of goalscoring pedigree. But is it what this team needs right now? How do you rebuild from the foundation up, if the old concrete (as great as it was) pours itself back in?
Think of it from Chhetri's point of view, and you can understand the decision. He's seen his country struggling and he is in a position to do something about it, even if that depends on him reversing the biggest career decision he's ever taken. The national team coach has explicitly requested his return. His fitness is still top-notch, and there's little doubt he'll top those charts at the national camp yet again. His form has rarely been better domestically -- after all, this ISL season had seen him play some of his best football, these 12 goals (and counting) his highest ever tally in the league stages of the ten seasons we've had of this competition. It's already one more than he scored in the three previous league stages combined. It's also his second-best league (phase) season since 2013/14 in Bengaluru's debut season in the I-League when he scored 14 (he could still overtake that number, of course). So... why not? Few athletes from the sub-continent have ever hesitated in similar conditions, why should it not be the same with Chhetri, then?
Now, many had thought it was down to the freedom that retirement had given him, Atlas breathing with ease finally now that the world of Indian football was off his mighty shoulders. It's clear, though, that Chhetri himself disagrees with that sentiment. And so, he returns for the two matches this international window -- the AFC Asian Cup qualifier against Bangladesh and a friendly against Maldives. He would, most likely, start them as India's #9 (what's the point of calling him up otherwise) and India will simply have to wait atleast a few months more before finding out if they will sink or float when the pressure is amped up, in the games that matter, when their lifeboat of two decades is not there.
Is that a good thing? Well... the only thing we know for sure now is that we don't need to play a guessing game to find out who'll wear #11.
He's back, bhai.