Former Indian football team striker Bhaichung Bhutia feels all strikers need to develop their sixth sense if they want to score goals regularly.
"It's all about that sixth sense. You need to smell it as to where it would be coming. The best strikers in the world all have that sense. You need to read situations. Unless you don't develop your sixth sense, you won't be a successful striker," Bhutia said during an Instagram live session with the All Indian Football Federation (AIFF).
Referring to an anecdote where Indian team captain Sunil Chhetri mentioned that 'scoring goals was all about life and death for Bhaichung-bhai,' Bhaichung who made his international debut at the age of 19 stressed on the importance of "making those runs every time you sense it."
"Those runs are extremely critical for a striker. I used to keep telling Sunil (Chhetri) that you need to anticipate and make runs from where you can score. If you go wide, you have to dribble and get past the defender, and by the time you turn and get past him, others will also rush in to block you. Only once or twice out of maybe 10 situations you will get the chance to score. But you need to keep on doing it," he explained.
"If you look at Ronaldo and Messi, it's not always that they dribble past 3-4 defenders. Rather, all big strikers wait for the ball and then touch it. At the end, it's all about developing that sense, and I repeat unless you keep on making those runs you will never develop that sense," the veteran said.
Bhaichung even made mention of Rustam Akramov shifting him from a midfielder to a striker. "I was an attacking midfielder and was used to make those runs from behind to get into the box and set myself in a position from where I could score. Those days we weren't much tactically equipped. Not many people would teach you in which position you should play. It was all natural -- that's how I played," he quipped.
( With inputs from ANI )