MS Dhoni is number one football player in Indian team', says Rohit Sharma

Mumbai: As Rohit Sharma became the first-ever La Liga brand ambassador in India, he termed MS Dhoni as the best football player in the team on Thursday.

"MS Dhoni is the number one football player. There are few guys like Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul, and Hardik Pandya they follow football and they do watch all these footballers," Rohit said during the media briefing.

The 32-year-old opener from Mumbai named 'Zinedine Zidane' as his favourite footballer while his favourite club is Real Madrid. He termed 'Spain' as his FIFA World Cup.

Talking about the India football he said Indian Super League (ISL) has provided the base for the footballers as like what Indian Premier League (IPL) did in Indian cricket.

"I think it has become competitive. The infrastructure has grown immensely. ISL, in particular, has provided a great platform to all these younger Indian players to come out and display the skills just like IPL has done for Indian cricket. I can only see the Indian football grow from here," Rohit said.

Expressing his happiness after becoming the La Liga brand ambassador Rohit said it an honour to be part of such a high-profile league.

He further said that he has watched El Clasico many times on television and is excited to witness the clash in the stadium.

"What an honour to be part of such a high-profile league and to be the first-ever ambassador from India gives me great pleasure. As you know India is growing pretty fast in terms of sports especially football now. I will be very very happy to be part of this growth moving forward especially in India and look forward to coming to Spain and watch some games as well," Rohit said.

"I have seen it so many times on television. There is so much passion just watching it. I can't even imagine how it is at the stadium so many people sitting and watching El Clasico game between the two best clubs in the world. It is one of the most competitive leagues in the world. La Liga brings out so much skills and passion that when you are watching it from home itself you feel like you are at the stadium," he added.

The aggressive batsman said his first love was cricket but football remained very close to his heart.

"Cricket was my love to start with. Football was very very close to me. Only because it gives me so much joy to watch all these players when they score a goal they celebrate, they make those moves on the field. Those kinds of things I used to look forward to," Rohit said.

"I always used to watch football when I was growing up. In India cricket is how football is in Spain. Everybody wants to pick up the bat and play cricket in India," he added.