India after Sunil Chhetri: What are we going to do when he retires, asks Indian football head coach Igor Stimac

Sunil Chhetri’s second-half brace against Bangladesh helped India to end their 11-match winless streak. It was also India’s first win in the 7th game in the Asian leg of the FIFA World Cup qualifiers.

It won’t be wrong to say that Sunil Chhetri has been carrying the national football team single-handedly for more than a decade. The Indian captain has rescued his team countless times, and no one really knows where the team would be on the football map without Sunil Chhetri. The 36-year-old scored a brace in India’s 2-0 win over Bangladesh in their Group E clash at the Jassim Bin Hamad Stadium in Doha. With his brace, Chhetri (74 goals in 117 matches) eclipses Argentina’s Lionel Messi (72 in 143 games) and becomes the second-highest active international goalscorer, after Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo (103 goals in 174 games). In the all-time goalscorers list in International football, Chhetri is ranked 11th. However, the question remains, what will happen to Indian football once the charismatic striker hangs his boots. Chhetri is 36, and by no means he is getting any younger.