AFC U-23 Qualifiers: Coach Stephen Constantine lauds India's progress over last two years

Doha: Stephen Constantine has been the craftsman behind India’s rise in the last couple of years and the chief coach prefers to stick to his philosophy of “giving the boys exposure” as much as possible in international football. “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.” [caption id=“attachment_2686730” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  File photo of Stephen Constantine. GettyImages[/caption] On being asked how does he rate the boys’ performance against some of the Asian heavyweights, he didn’t hesitate to mention that he’s “extremely proud” of their performance. “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. The frustration of losing the first two games got reflected in his words after registering the thumping victory over Turkmenistan. Constantine stated: “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.” He thanked the support stuff and All India Football Federation for their support to achieve this win, “I’m extremely happy for the players, stuff and All India Football Federation.” On being asked about the recent resurgence of India’s football, he stated he’s “very happy with the things at the moment”. “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.