Sunil Chetri Profile

Sunil Chetri is an Indian Football Player and considered to be one of the brightest members in the Indian Football squad at the moment. Primarily playing from the Forward Position, Sunil is famous for his control upon the ball apart from his excellent work rate.

Early Life & Club Career
He was born on the 3rd of August 1984 at Darjeeling, West Bengal. At the age of 17 years he began his Club Football career with the Delhi based City Club in the year 2001. Chetri played for the club for one year, and moved to Mohun Bagan Athletic Club, Kolkata in June 2002. For almost 3 years he played for Mohun Bagan, and left the club in June 2005 to join JCT Mills Phagwara. He delivered his best club performance for JCT Mills in a Football match against Sao Pulo Football Club during the Super Soccer Series 2007. Sunil left JCT Mills in August 2008, and joined East Bengal Club, Kolkata and has still been playing for them.

National & International Career
Apart from Club Football, the 5�7�� tall Sunil weighing 62 kg has played for Delhi Football team in 8 tournaments, and has also been a part of the Indian Railway squad that played in Col. Murray Cup. Chetri has represented the Indian National Football team both at Junior and Senior levels. In the year 2007, Sunil was named the Best Player of the 11th National Football League. He managed to score a total number of 12 goals in the League.

Sunil Chetri has delivered promising performance at the International Level too, in a number of tournaments and trophies. He scored 2 goals in a match against Cambodia in the year 2007, and scored a hat trick in a match against Tajikistan in the AFC Challenge Cup 2008 which is said to be one of his best performances. The victory guaranteed India a direct entry to the Final Rounds of the tournament to be held in Doha, Qatar. He has been a part of the Indian Football team that won the ONGC Nehru Gold Cup tournament in the year 2007, and the AFC Challenge Cup tournament in the year 2008.

Overseas Clubs
Sunil�s outstanding performance has generated interest in various foreign Football clubs such as Estoril Praia of Portugues Second Division, Liga de Honra and Leeds United belonging to the English League One. Chetri went to England on 26th of January 2009 to begin a trial with the Coventry City Football Club, also known as Sky Blues, situated in Coventry, England. Coventry City plays in the Football League Championship and had won the FA Cup 1987 beating Tottenham Totspur by 3-2.

Unfortunately, Sunil couldn�t get through the Coventry City�s strict yardsticks and wasn�t able to impress the club to offer him a contract. Chris Coleman, the boss of Coventry City made an announcement on the 29th of January of 2009 that the Sunil was not selected in the trials, although Chetri said he was not disheartened by the rejection as he might keep looking for other options as well.

As a honor of his excellent performance and contribution to the game of Football, NDTV named him the Indian Player of the year 2007.