Constantine remains to be the preferred choice for Head Coach

All India Football Association’s General Secretary Kushal Das said that Stephen Constantine has been the preferred choice for the position of Head Coach of Indian Men’s Football Team over North – East United FC Coach Ricki Herbert. The preference has been given due to Constantine’s prior experience with the Indian Team.

It was mainly the decision of the technical committee to have a person as a coach who knows the trend of Indian Football, who would understand the problems and the constraints of Indian Football. This has been announced on the eve of the I-League kick off match between Bengaluru FC and Dempo SC. The federation also considered Constantine’s name because India will be playing Asia Cup and eight World Cup qualifiers in 2015 and 2016.

Das also mentioned that Constantine has worked wonders in upgrading the team’s FIFA ranking from 168 to 129. The new coach will be taking charge of his duty from the first week of February. However, he will not be coaching the team selected to play for the FIFA U-17 World Cup, scheduled in 2017.

His immediate focus would be to make India qualify for Asian Cup in 2019 and gradually to improve the rankings significantly. On the other hand, it has been further announced that Nikolai Adams has been shortlisted for the position of the U-17 Coach. In this regard, Das has also taken the trend of AIFF President Praful Patel saying that the importance of I-League has not been reduced because of the Indian Super League (ISL). Amidst of the hype of ISL, I-League remains to be the national league of the country from where national team would be able to escalate on an international level. Praful Patel contribution has been a great asset for AIFF to be self motivated and to make further advancements in the game with the best practices and technical skills. Kushal Das signed off saying, “I-League continues to be the national league of the country. The national team is selected after seeing their performance in this tournament. Its primacy has not been reduced by any means.”