Stephen Constantine told that he would aim to make his team play 10 or 12 matches this year. (Source: Express Archive)
Stephen Constantine has been a crucial factor behind India’s rise in the last couple of years. To prepare his boys Constantine has been giving the Indian boys as much exposure as possible.
“The whole objective of mine before coming to Doha was to give as many players international exposure as possible. If I’m not wrong, we’ve rotated the squad and not less than 18-19 players played in this tournament.”, he said.
On being asked how does he rate the boys’ performance against some of the Asian heavyweights, he said, “We have been successful what we wanted to achieve. We gradually improved from one game to another. It was extremely pleasing to get a win in this match (against Turkmenistan),” Constantine said..
He further added, “As they say, we, finally, won a game in this tournament. If we evaluate, we were unlucky to lose the first one, extremely unlucky in the next game against Qatar. The boys have worked very hard and we deserved this victory.”
Thanking the AIFF he said, “I’m extremely happy for the players, stuff and All India Football Federation. and added, “We have made very big steps in the last 2 years. India are on the verge of qualifying for the AFC Asian Cup. Nonetheless, India need to qualify for the AFC Asian Cup regularly and may be for the World Cup too in the future.
“We need to be regular in AFC Asian Cup, U23 AFC Championship and other age-group tournaments as well. A lot of work to do now onward. As of now, we are enjoying this moment and we’ll be looking forward to the next win.”
