INDIAN FOOTBALL CAPTAIN Sunil Chhetri spoke up passionately about his own journey as a player and the state of sports in Indian society at an event in his birthtown Hyderabad. Apart from speaking about his experience playing for his country, he questioned the passive attitude with which Indians approach sports, and the lack of proper training for aspiring sportspersons.
Asked about the biggest moment in his sporting career, Sunil did not have to think twice, and told the attendees that it was the day he put on the coveted India colours for the first time, in his debut for India U-23 against Pakistan U-23, at the SAFF Games.
"I think there are many moments... but if I have to point out one, it has to be the day I wore my national jersey... [it] was the most important moment of my life... there's no other thing better than wearing my national jersey."
But he was equally articulate when it came to discussing less comfortable subjects like India's sub-par performance in the big sporting events of the world. Indian athletes rarely stand out in the Olympics, and India has never played in the World Cup. Why a country of 1.3 billion people cannot produce a large number of athletes who excel in their disciplines is a debate that has been raging for years. When Sunil was asked the same question, his answer was passionate, articulate in a folksy way that drove home the point very hard.
"We never ask ourselves that in the 1.3 billion people, how many kids are we training properly. Do we ever ask, that from Kanyakumari to Lakshadweep to Manipur to, every kid, whether a he or a she, who wants to play sports, are they being given proper training? If we are not doing that, how can you say, arrey yaar, we have a billion people aur hamne kya kiya. We cannot say that can we? It's very easy to sit in our rooms and say, accha, sirf teen medal laaye? Accha, ye toh haarke aa gaye?... We've got to ask ourselves are we training the 1.3 billion people we have? The kid who wants to be the next Ashwini Ponappa in Lakshadweep, is she getting the right coaching? The kid who wants to be the next Baichung Bhutia in Kashmir, is he getting the right coaching? Does the kid who wants to be Jwala Gupta know that she can't have samosas if she wants to be Jwala Gupta? Does everyone have the knowledge?"
He said playing the blame game was no way to solve this problem. Giving the example of a school he visited, he recounted how many of the kids there loved playing football and were good at it, but they and their parents had no idea about proper sporting diet and discipline. To get out of this sporting rut, he said, there has to be a change from the ground up; training facilities for children should be drastically improved and we will have to allow sports to be a more integral part of our lives and culture. Once that is done, he said with conviction, success will come.
"Who do we blame? We start pointing fingers. It's easy. It starts from ourselves. What am I doing? If in our country we know how to think about sports and how to prepare for it there is no chance that the Chinese, the Americans and the Canadians will take more medals than us. There is no chance. The day when we realise this, that 1.3 billion people is more than enough... if every kid who wants to play sports is trained well, there's no chance we'll be [coming back from Olympics with just 3 medals]. Trust me."
Watch the captain's awe-inspiring oration right here...