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AFC confers Sunil Chhetri as ‘Asian Icon’ on his 34th birthday
Indian football team captain Sunil Chhetri received perhaps the best gift on his 34th birthday by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) who bestowed him with the ‘Asian Icon’ title and showered him with praises for rivalling two of the world’s greatest players of this generation in scoring goals.
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Chhetri is third after global superstars Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi in the list of the highest international goal-scorer and is the top-most active Asian player with 64 strikes from 101 matches.
Wishing the legend on his birthday, AFC put up an article on its official page, titled “Asian Icons: Sunil Chhetri,” which contained a throwback of his footballing career and his most memorable moments on the field, both for his country and club.
“In the era of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, to be the third highest scoring international footballer in the world is no mean feat, and for an Asian player to be within one goal of Messi’s 65 goals for a national team is a record our latest inductee to the ‘Asian Icons’ list should be proud of,” wrote the football’s continental governing body.
“As he turns 34 today, we celebrate the career of Sunil Chhetri, India’s most capped player, and all-time top goal scorer.”
Also Read: Sunil Chhetri to play for Bengaluru FC until 2021
The article further played a throwback of how Chhetri was raised in an Army family but went on to become one of Asia’s greatest ever footballers, despite playing for a cricket-frenzy country.
“In a cricket-mad nation, Chhetri was raised in a footballing family, where his father represented the Indian Army team while his mother and aunt were international footballers for Nepal.”
“Chhetri caught the football fever but never imagined how far he would go. Little did the India captain know he would go on to surpass a century of caps and score 21 more international goals since 2015 to rival the world’s greatest players of the generation and lead his nation to a fourth AFC Asian Cup in their history with four goals in the qualifiers,” the AFC added.
He also helped India lift the 2015 SAFF Suzuki Cup and was named the tournament’s MVP. The Bengaluru FC forward is currently in Spain in preparation for the upcoming season.
The official Twitter account of the Indian football team also wished the owner of the 100 international caps calling him “Captain Marvel.” We wish our Captain Marvel a Happy Birthday. Stay blessed,” they wrote.
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