Thursday , March 28 2024

India’s Stephen Constantine: They Boys have shown fantastic determination!

Plaudits are still flowing in for the gutsy performance put in by the India U-22 team against favourites Qatar in the second match of the AFC U-23 Championship Qualifiers yesterday, July 21.

Despite going down by a solitary second-half goal, the Indians have drawn huge accolades from none other than the opponent coach, Felix Sanchez who termed the win as a ‘hard-earned one’.

“I expected it to be a difficult outing for my team and it actually was. I am happy with the result and it’s nothing less than a hard-earned win,” Felix went on saying in the post-match press conference.

Meanwhile, Stephen Constantine lavished huge praise for the ‘strong determination’ shown by the boys.

Stephen didn’t hold himself back from congratulating Qatar for the ‘fortunate’ win during the post-match press-conference.

“Congratulations to the Qatar team for the win. They must consider themselves quite fortunate because I think, we had more possession than them.”

He maintained, “I am really proud of my boys, some of whom have played the International Football for the first time today. At least, they deserved not to lose this game but again we lost to another silly mistake.”

He rued the opportunity when Manvir’s left footer rebounded off the crossbar in the 80th minute of the match.

“Another day, it might have hit the crossbar and would go in resulting in a point from this game, but unfortunately, this didn’t happen tonight. They have shown fantastic determination tonight”, he added.

Qatar coach Felix had no other option than admitting that Indian outfit almost got under their skin towards the end.

“If you consider the last 20 minutes or so, they were the better team perhaps. Thankfully, we were able to hold our nerves to churn out a positive result until the final whistle”, Felix concluded.

About Arunava Chaudhuri

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One comment

  1. Stephan Constantine is a smart and intelligent guy but sometimes his smartness so very out runs his honesty and sincerity that the smartness looses its balance and creates self-contradiction.

    If now Stephan agrees that many of the players of India U-23 squad had no international match exposure what was he and AIFF doing ? Stephan was busy authoring statements in favour of ISL and what all things the I-League clubs should be doing to become a part of ISL . Is Stephen a promoter of ISL or the coach of India Senior and India U-23 team ?

    When the coach of Asian Games winning Uzbek squad , Mr Rustam Akramov was the coach of India , Akramov had taken the initiative to arrange multiple practice matches for the India U-23 team against various clubs of Uzbekistan.Stephan is an Englishman. Why couldn’t he along with AIFF arrange for 5-6 practice matches with 2nd and 3rd division clubs of England ?

    It would be good for Indian football if Stephan stays away from politics and money matters and honestly and sincerely focus on his coaching. Everyone deserves a 2nd chance and so does Stephen.