Sunil Chhetri returns to football at 40 – a year after retiring – to boost India’s Asia Cup qualification hopes.

Indian football legend Sunil Chhetri will return to the national team aged 40 in an unexpected reversal of his decision to hang up his boots last year.

The former captain, the fourth-highest men’s international goalscorer of all time, played his last match for India in June 2024 in a World Cup qualifier.

Chhetri said last year that “instinct” told him the match against Kuwait should be his last and he bowed out in front of nearly 59,000 fans in Kolkata.

But on Thursday, India head coach Manolo Marquez announced the return of India’s most-capped player for the March international window.

India are out of qualifying for the 2026 World Cup and are now targeting the Asian Cup in 2027.

“The qualification for the Asian Cup is very crucial for us. Given the importance of the tournament and the matches ahead, I discussed with Sunil Chhetri about making a comeback to strengthen the national team,” Marquez said in a statement from the All India Football Federation.

“He agreed, and so we have included him in the squad.”

India play a friendly against Maldives on March 19, in preparation for an Asian Cup qualifier against Bangladesh on March 25.

Football has struggled to find its feet among the 1.4 billion people of India, where the sport is dwarfed by the nation’s longstanding cricket obsession.

Former FIFA President Sepp Blatter once called India a “sleeping giant” of football.

Chhetri is a sporting icon in cricket-mad India.

The diminutive striker, who is 1.7 metres (5ft 7in) tall, made his debut against fierce rivals Pakistan in 2005 and scored India’s only goal.

Chhetri had two brief but unsuccessful spells in Portugal and the United States but has spent most of his career in India.

In 2009 he was offered a contract by London club Queens Park Rangers, in England’s second tier, but he could not get a work permit.