The return of Stephen Constantine was confirmed on Friday as the All India Football Federation named the Englishman as the successor to Wim Koevermans, who was the head coach of the senior Indian team.
Constantine was the coach of the African country Rwanda in his previous role and will now be looking to take over the helm of the Indian senior and U23 team for a second time in his career.
He was the coach of the Indian team back in 2002 and stayed as the head till 2005 during which the team not only won the LG cup in Vietnam, the Indian team also came second in the Afro-Asian games. His development of the Rwandan team led them to achieve their highest ever ranking as they reached the rank of 68 in last month’s rankings.
The Indian team currently are in their lowest position ever in the FIFA rankings and are above Sri Lanka in the rankings. India is ranked as the 171st nation according to FIFA, while the highest ranking that India ever achieved was 94th which was almost 2 decades ago.
The launch of the new ISL might have helped gain a few eyeballs and tv viewers for the game but without the national team and players developing there really cannot be much hope for the growth of Indian football which has stagnated for a few years.
Stephen Constantine has already coached Nepal, Malawi, Sudan and Rwanda as the other international teams under his belt and will be looking to kick start the rise and growth of Indian football.
It is expected that Constantine will be taking over the reins in the first week of February 2015. India would be hoping that the past experience of Constantine does work out as they have been languishing at the lower end of the FIFA rankings. Constantine would be knowing full well of the job at hand and it will be a tough ride for him and the team to start climbing up the table.
Picture courtesy: Newtimes & BBC