Former India cricketer Rahul Dravid, who played a friendly football match against Bengaluru FC skipper Sunil Chhetri’s side, talked about his school days when he played football too often.

Rahul spoke about his love for the game. As quoted by Sportstarlive, he said, “I played football in school (St. Joseph’s BHS). Everyone plays football in school. But, once I was 14-15, cricket took over. Over the years, I’ve always followed FIFA World Cup and Champions League.”

Dravid played at the ‘Boost Play the Pros’ event in Bangalore Football Stadium as a goalkeeper against Footballer Sunil Chhetri's team.

During the friendly match, Chhetri scored against Dravid and said, “That is going up on my bio.It was great to spend time with the kids and Dravid. (BFC first-team goalkeeper) Gurpreet Sandhu was thrilled that Dravid asked him for his goalkeeping gloves. Dravid asked Gurpreet for a photo as well. A lot of us watched a lot of cricket when we were young when Dravid was at his peak. He means a lot to us.”

Calling BFC players ‘real superstars,’ Dravid said, “Guys like Sunil are the real superstars. I’ve watched a couple of BFC matches, and it is wonderful to see how the club connects with the city and engages the fans. When a kid sees young guys like Rahul (Bheke) and Udanta (Singh) do well for BFC, they feel that there is a route they can take in order to make football a career. It is quite similar to cricket in the 1970’s.”

Dravid and Chhetri handed out year-long scholarships to the winners. Ten-year-old Guru Kiran and 13-year-old Monica N. were hand-picked by the club’s youth coaching staff and will receive training under BFC coaches for a year.