He Distances Himself From Records And Landmarks With Ease And Things Weren’t Any Different On The Eve Of His 150th Game For The Club. But Somewhere Inside, Sunil Chhetri Knew This One Was Special…

Sometimes you wished it was all a façade, a garb or the perfect PR stunt. Sunil Chhetri’s absolute disinterest in celebrating a milestone can wear you down, to the point where you start wondering whether you’ve been doing happiness wrong all these years.

The underplayed emotions aren’t just for the cameras and press conferences, they carry on to the dressing room and then to the confines of his home. There isn’t the slightest of change the next morning. In fact, even the half smile he flashed the day before, vanishes completely.

But in all your expecting him to do justice to the occasion and the subsequent disappointment, what you miss is the undying gratitude of a man who says he’s blessed to be able to put his body through the wringer, game after game. One hundred and fifty times for Bengaluru FC, to be precise.

“I’m terrible at all these things. People around me keep throwing reminders and I make it worse by doing a really bad job of faking a mild degree of excitement. The truth is, I enjoy training and playing so much, that I’m not sure how these numbers and landmarks matter. When I’m done playing professionally – which is in another eight years – I’ll sit down and probably give these moments the value they actually deserve,” he says, making no effort to suggest that the time frame he’s put on retirement was a joke.

For all the hoopla surrounding his signing for Bengaluru in 2013, Chhetri’s first appearance for the club was one he made coming off the bench against Mohun Bagan at the Bangalore Football Stadium. “I’ve never really taken anything for granted in my career, but that moment was an important reminder, in case I ever slipped along the way,” he recalls. Predictably, there’s been no slipping for six seasons and the count doesn’t look like halting soon.

As harsh as it may sound, Chhetri can be accused of footballing infidelity – how else do you nicely term the fact that he’s played for ten different clubs? But then Bengaluru FC came along, and the heart wouldn’t want more. “Given how much I’ve wandered as a footballer, I would laugh if you suggested that I would be around at Bengaluru for six years and turn out for my 150th game when I signed in 2013. But sometimes in life and in football, there’s a completely unaccounted turn that you end up taking and everything changes. Bengaluru FC was that turn for me. I did have a degree of attachment to JCT, but what I feel for Bengaluru FC is unmatched.”

He’s brazenly stated at numerous interactions with the media, how the last few seasons have been his best in his career. It prompted us to ask him if he’d ever wished that Bengaluru FC would have taken come into existence earlier than it did. “I’d be lying blatantly if I said no. I have had this thought on more than one occasion. I’ve been at a fair number of clubs and I’ve learnt from my time at every one of them, but at Bengaluru FC, it’s been an education. The club did really well in bringing the coaches it did. Ashley, Albert and now Carles – they’re all teachers. And you don’t ever want to miss school when they’re at the blackboard. Also, I envy the boys at the Academy. They’re starting out now and look what they have access to! So yes, I do get a little greedy in wishing what I do, but I am also grateful that Bengaluru FC happened to me at a very crucial juncture in my career.”

One hundred and fifty caps has also meant he’s lost a lot of good friends and teammates along the way. Chhetri is now the last surviving member of the the first Bengaluru FC squad that was unveiled on a July evening at the BFS. “I’ve made a lot of great friends here, many of whom I miss. But when you put it like that, I feel really old! Six years in football is a very long time.”

While most are measuring the landmark with trophies and goals from another planet, Chhetri’s take is slightly different. “Across these six seasons and 150 games, I’ve had more success on the pitch than failures, but more importantly, I’ve had more good things happen to me in life than ever. Bengaluru FC, for me, is so much more than what happens on the pitch and that’s something you cannot search for. It finds you.”