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Constantine has lost my support in the recent months. Not because of the losses, but because he has not shown any willingness to make some changes or give us some explanations on why he is doing all these things he is doing.

The way he approached the santosh trophy was the last straw for me. At least give us a believable explanation on why he would not experiment with *something* new (anything!).

It is not like he is getting along so famously with all the clubs that they ("my scouting eyes and ears," as he has been saying) have been helping him out anyway. Just the contrary! - some of the big clubs are always upset at him. So what the heck is he up to? .. Puzzling.

As in Rach's case, in the end, I would say that Constantine was a good experiment for India, in that we have now elevated the post of "national coach" to a higher level of authority and we are probably willing to go for another foreign coach. Despite what some Kolkata and Goa pundits might say about how poor a coach he was, I think he did manage to change the tone of discussion about the "national team" a fair bit, and managed to show that a bit more can be brought out from our players, like he did in the earlier part of his tenure, if we make them believe in the coach. Though he seemed to lose the players' confidence this year, he showed something extra from our players earlier, that no Indian coach could have brought out from them. He also probably made us a realize that perhaps only a foreign coach can do it for the time being, with all the factionalism and club politics in India ... That is if we do not read it all wrong and listen to the Indian "stalwarts" who are gloating with the "we could have done better" line (which is hogwash)!

Hopefully the new coach would be somebody willing to learn from some of the mistakes Constantine made.

Jay

You are very right Jayakris. Constantine has proven to be even more stubborn than your average Indian coach. He is unwilling to change his game strategies and formations even though they have obviously not worked. His player selection has baffled even the most die-hard Indian football buffs. Why would he take a 17-member team to Kuwait when he is allowed 20 and choose 3 recovering injured players on his 17 man squad. Why not take at least one standout from the Santosh Trophy when he has so many injured regulars. The remaining matches are simply practice and he refuses to try anything new. No coach in their right mind would choose 3 defenders that are around 5'8". He has brought Indian Football to a new low by coming in 3rd in the SAFF Cup, Getting shutout by a Singapore team full of young reserves, losing to a Korean college select team, Uzbek U-20 team, and even coaching our U20 team to a loss against Laos! It will take plenty of time just to recover from the indignities of Constantine's reign of terror. This after showing so much improvement in the 2002 WC Qualifiers, youth championships, and Asian Games. It looked promising at the beginning of Constantine's tenure, but just deteriorated thereafter.

Constantine was a good coach of the Indian team and he has now outlived his usefulness to Indian football. There are many reasons why he was unable to achieve better results, and some of the faults were his and the other faults must be blamed on the Indian football bosses, club officials, etc.

He knows that Indian football bosses have no faith in him and he has probably been told about his future with Indian football. He is simply going through the motions of being a coach of the Indian team.

It is time for him to go.

Friends, i just wanted to show this link i read, it is on how Indian football is improving and about the success of the santosh trophy. It is a small section but still it is just like what we are talking about on this website:

http://www.indianexpress.com/sunday/sportsline.html

Interesting that the Ambedkar Stadium in Delhi was packed with 20,000 spectators for the Santosh Trophy final, and that the hockey series against Pakistan attracted large crowds too. Clearly there is a reservoir of support for sports other than cricket, but this message needs to reach the corporates and the media, so that financial support for other sports increases.

I'm a bit surprised to find that the Durand Cup has reached the semi-final stage. This means that some of the earlier matches may have clashed with the Santosh Trophy, which appears to reflect very poorly on the AIFF's scheduling abilities.
Also, sadly the Bagan-Salgaocar semi ended goalless -- a sad commentary on our dearth of strikers. Here's the match report from rediff.com:
http://in.rediff.com/sports/2004/nov/07bagan.htm

Of course .. We discussed it in October .. Check this thread ..

viewtopic.php?t=211734

Kerala won it. And the Kerala players reward was that not a player in the team was considered for the Indian team!

Jay

Well looks like nobody has mentioned the Santosh trophy just started, so what do you guys think abt it? Considering how Zee is covering the tournament and also considering how they went well in the Federation cup maybe there will be more interest?

This is the only tournament where 100% India players play so Im sure there will be new stars for the future. I think Goa will win because of their current form and many of their players are already in the NFL and India team. They are scorring more goals already in the qualifiers. I think Manipur, Kerala and Bengal will go close especially Kerala becuase of the big name India players and also the crowd.

Just another thing these articles are cool..they are on the 2 English commentators who are working with Zeetv. They say good things abt Indian football and how surprised they are but also they say how our boys need foreign coaching:

http://www.tssonnet.com/tss2846/stories ... 506200.htm

Vijayan interview:
http://www.tssonnet.com/tss2846/stories ... 106400.htm

Nice to receive news about Santosh trophy. Yeah that is good that 100% Indians play.

My guess would be that the main competition would be among West Bengal, Goa, Kerala and Manipur.

Go Kerala, of course!!!

Jay

Good luck Goa!!!

Best of luck to West Bengal!! o!!

Is Andhra Pradesh playing? If they are go AP!!!

I think so. I think AP is playing.