Don’t take Fifa rankings seriously: Chhetri

There is usually a positive correlation between a surge in Fifa rankings and winning games but for India skipper Sunil Chhetri, the focus is always on the latter. “I don’t take rankings too seriously,” he said here on Saturday.

Getting to 96 in the current Fifa rankings hasn’t been easy but Chettri said the challenge now will be to stay there. “That will be very tough. If after three years we are still in the top 100, I think that will be a massive achievement,” said Chhetri. From a high of 45 in 1998, Thailand slumped to 60 in 2001 and to 137 in 2006. Lithuania were 55 in 2010 and 116 in 2012. Having used an algorithm of playing some away games against teams ranked slightly below it and beating a higher-ranked Puerto Rico at home, India moved north in the rankings. But no formula would have worked had they not won matches so that explains why Chhetri, 33, wants to focus on victories. “We have won 13 out of our last 15 games and we are not going to get complacent. Trust me; it is not going to be easy against Macau (in the Asian Cup qualifiers, away on September 5 and at home on October 10). I don’t know much about the timing of the Champions Cup (a planned international tournament in India) and how many players would be available but we will try to win games, that is the most important thing.”

Speaking about India’s surge in the rankings, Chhetri said the team is now more in sync with what the coach (Stephen Constantine) wants. “He too knows the players better now. When he took over (in March 2015), a lot of senior players were moving out and so he drafted in a number of juniors…But we have a long way to go.”

Chhetri said he didn’t like the idea of more than four foreigners in either the I-League or ISL “but said there is a way to get there. Next year, we have been promised that there would be four imports allowed”.