AGENCIES, NEW DELHI: Stephen Constantine acknowledged that while every individual has an opinion as to why as particular player wasn’t picked in the national squad, not everyone is endowed with the technical know-how to determine the reason for the same.
The Indian national team coach illustrated the same by citing Romeo Fernandes’ case who was on loan with Atletico PR before the club decided to release him last month.
“It matters not who is to blame (but) the question is what are we doing about it now. We all want to qualify for the top competitions and everyone wants that, but if we don’t have the players coming through then how is that going to be possible? Everyone looks to the national team and of course, everyone has their own ideas as to who should be playing and who should not but what many people don’t understand is what is going on around the player,” he wrote in his blog.
“An example would be Romeo who went to Brazil. He was in fact in my list to be in my first squad against Nepal. But he had left for Brazil. My question is why? We had no information he had left and I had to take him off the list so as he would not have to return from Brazil days after he had gone there. Sadly for the player, we all know how that ended and so the player has wasted five months of his football career for nothing,” he explained.
He also expounded that not every player who has given a good account of themselves in the I-League stands a chance for selection. He also has to give it a thought whether the player can fit into the system he wishes to employ.
The 52-year-old stated that his job is on the line if he doesn’t win games and hence, if he believes a particular player can do the job for him, he shall certainly be a part of the national squad.
“I have been to more I-League games then just about anyone in the country I am at two games and sometimes three games a week with Venky (Shanmugham Venkatesh) my assistant coach going to the same amount of games elsewhere. So we really do have the whole league covered. I want to win football games more than anyone (as) my future depends on it.
“So I am not going to play a player who I feel will not give me what we need. As always with rebuilding teams there are going to be days when things don’t work out or a player freezes but I have done this many times before in my career. Sometimes you can turn things around quickly and (at) other times it takes time but in the end I will get there,” he assured the Indian fans.
He mentioned that the transition from the I-League to international football is massive. With his ‘rebuilding’ project, Constantine reasoned that he wishes to include several youngsters but India doesn’t have many competitions for age groups.
“Ideally you would like to blood the youngsters in the Under-23 or Under-20 but there are so few games at those age groups that we can’t do that. So we end up throwing them in at the deep end and when you do that you are not going to get consistency from those players to begin with. They need to understand the difference and the speed at which the game is played at the international level. It is not easy to go from the very slow paced I-League to International football (and) so it takes time,” he wrote.
The former Sudan boss reiterated that he would like more time to prepare before a World Cup qualifier as their opponents were certainly better prepared.
“My other problem is that we do not get enough time with the players in the national team camps. I had four full days before the Oman game as the I-League ended on the May 31. Camp was due to start on the third of June. So we wasted two days in Delhi trying to get visas for Guam. Oman on the other hand had a two week camp and two friendly games against Bahrain and Syria,” he pointed.
