Happy Independence Day: No Other Feeling Like Playing For India – Gurpreet Singh Sandhu

Gurpreet Singh Sandhu has been the Indian football team's starting goalkeeper for quite sometime. Celebrating the country's 74th Independence Day, the Bengaluru FC custodian said a day earlier in an interview with AIFF that there is no better feeling than representing his country.

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"There's no feeling like playing for the country. You want to play as many games as you can for your nation. It's something really special and we are all raring to go back, I can assure you. I would like to wish a Happy Independence Day to all my fellow Indians in the country as well as outside. Stay safe, take care of your families and enjoy the day. Look forward to seeing you at stadias soon," he said.

He also went onto discuss that Indian football deserves respect just like any other team, as the outfit consists of hardworking players, who work hard for results.

Sandhu is currently in Sydney, where he is training under former AC Milan and Australia goalkeeper Zeljko Kalac, who is also a Champions League winner. Sandhu explained that he was in Australia before COVID-19 shutdown, but then the measures made it hard for him to return to India.

"I came here (in Sydney) before the country shut down their borders and after that, they did an extreme lockdown where you can't go out. So, I was working out at home for a couple of months. When the restrictions eased out, I reached to Erik (BFC teammate Erik Paartalu) was training with him about a couple of times in a week," he said.

Gurpreet has been training under Kalac for almost a month now. Kalac is also the goalkeeping coach of Sydney United 58.

Speaking about how football has changed, Sandhu said, "The level of knowledge and exposure today’s generation of players have as compared to back then -- there's been a big change. Now it's much more and information is easier to get. A player like Sunil Chhetri, who was there at that time is still at the top of his game and he has changed his habits. Young players can follow looking at his example or looking at Sandesh (Jhingan) or me. That’s how it works."

Remembering his amazing display against Qatar last year, where the scoreline was 0-0, Gurpreet said, "We were very proud of the result. We had worked so hard and relentlessly. I was really emotional. Before the game, we saw predictions like that we would lose by a heavy margin. I'm happy that I could share that moment with the people in the stands. We proved that everyone is equal when they step on to the pitch."

(AIFF press release inputs)