Team India captain Sunil Chhetri has announced he will to retire from international football on 6 June.
In a video posted on X, he said that the FIFA World Cup 2026 qualifier against Kuwait on June 6 would be his last game.
“One last game… for all our sakes…let’s win the game and we can depart, happily,” he says in the video.
Chhetri, 39, has been capped 145 times by India, scoring 94 goals in a career spanning 20 years. His first goal in national colours was scored during his debut match in 2005.
In the nine-minute-51-second-long video post on X, Chhetri reminisced about the high and low points in his long.
“The kid inside will probably keep fighting to play football, but the sensible, mature player and person knows that this is it,” he said. “But it wasn’t easy,” he noted.
“The feel that I recollect in the last 19 years is a very nice combination of duty, pressure and immense joy,” Chhetri added.
“I never thought individually these are the games I’ve played for the country, this is what I’ve done good, I’ve done bad. But, now I did it, this last one-and-a-half two months. It felt very strange,” he said. “I did it because I was going towards the decision that the next game was going to be my last.”
“Every training that I do with the national team, I just want to enjoy. The game against Kuwait demands pressure, we need the three points to qualify for the next round. It’s hugely important for us,” the skipper said.
“But in a strange way, I don’t feel the pressure because these 15-20 days with the national team and the match against Kuwait is the last,” he added.
The striker also hinted that it was time to give a chance to the next generation of Indian ‘number nines’.
Chhetri is among the country’s most celebrated players, credited with shining a spotlight on Indian football nationally and internationally.
He currently holds the record of being the third-highest scorer of international goals among active footballers, after Argentina’s Lionel Messi and Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo.
In India, he has won several football awards, including the Arjuna Award – the country’s second-highest sporting award – and the Padma Shri, India’s fourth-highest civilian award.
On the global stage, Chhetri has led the team to victory in the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Challenge Cup, the South Asian Football Federation Championship, the Intercontinental Cup and more.
Chhetri, who is known to follow a strict diet and workout regimen, told the BBC in a previous interview about the “small sacrifices” he makes.
“It’s all about what I eat and how much I sleep. For the kind of good life that I have got by God’s grace, it’s not a big deal to go for the broccolis rather than the biryani – as I know there will be enough time for such indulgences once I am done with the game,” he had said.
