A good team performance was the priority – India captain Sunil Chhetri

Sportskeeda had been stressing ahead of India’s international friendly against the Philippines that skipper Sunil Chhetri must prove himself to coach Wim Koevermans again after being dropped to the bench in the SAFF Championship final.

When asked about the same after the 1-1 draw on Friday where he scored the opener, the 29-year-old played down the fact that he didn’t start the SAFF 2013 final and expressed satisfaction on being part of a good team display.

“I am always hungry to score goals, whether I am starting or not doesn’t matter. The team always comes first and I think we have been playing well since the SAFF 2013 Championship semi-final against Maldives. It was nice to score but a good team performance was the priority,” Sunil said after the game.

As per AIFF records, Sunil is now India’s joint-top scorer at international level with the legendary Bhaichung Bhutia. Both players have 42 goals each and Sunil admitted that he was aware of that statistic. But the Arjuna Awardee explained that he didn’t think about the record once he took the field.

“Yes I aware about it but it didn’t really play on my mind during the game. I was just trying to give my best and it was good to score from a corner because we have been working on it so you could see how happy the gaffer was once the ball went into the back of the net,” the Bengaluru FC forward stated.

Sunil thanked the fans in Siliguri for coming out in large numbers as the game saw a healthy attendance of around 15000 and remained optimistic of playing in front of a bigger crowd on Tuesday against Nepal.

“The atmosphere was tremendous today. It always helps when you have the backing of so many people. I would like to say a big thank you to all the fans and hopefully the ones that didn’t come today will be at the stadium for the Nepal match,” Sunil concluded.