India will breach historical best FIFA ranking soon, says coach Stephen Constantine

Stephen Constantine, India's football coach, is sure that the side under him will breach the historical best FIFA ranking of 94 in the next few months, as he trains his guns on taking the country to a third Asian Cup.

The Indian team is currently sitting at exactly the 100th spot, owing to seven international wings on the trot since last year. Constantine said that by the time the Asian Cup qualifiers end in March next year, they should be placed better than the 94th achieved in February 1996.

"I am not very good at mathematics. But if we are 93, I would be the happiest man. That would be the historical highest. I am going to do it. I don't know if it will be on July 6 (next FIFA ranking date) but I am going to do it. I don't know if that (Kyrgyzstan win on June 13 in Asian Cup qualifiers) will push us that far but I hope to make history at the end of these qualifiers," Constantine said​ in an interview with PTI.

On June 13, India beat Kyrgyzstan in Bangalore to place themselves on course to qualify for the Asian Cup in 2019. The qualifying round matches will continue till March next year.

India's next match is against Macau on September 5. If India qualifies for the 2019 Asian Cup, it will be only the third time that they would make it to the flagship continental tournament after 1984 and 2011. 

When told that India used to be in the 20's among Asian countries but are now at the 11th spot, just below the likes of China and Qatar, Constantine said in a lighter vein, "Not in their lifetime (people must be thinking this can happen)."

The 54-year-old coach, who is in his second stint as India's coach, after the first one in 2002-2005, said that his side were not playing with solely the FIFA rankings in mind. "The FIFA rankings are a little bit misleading, It does not tell the whole story. Because, that depends on the number of games you play, who you play with, what the other teams do and what other teams do not do."

"It's difficult to judge whether we are 11th best nation in Asia or we are 90 something in the world. There are a lot of very good teams who are below us because they did not play or they lost to bigger teams," said Constantine who is with the India Under-23 team for a 10-day national camp ahead of next month's continental qualifiers. 

Constantine, who began his second stint in March last year, said, "I don't get carried away with the FIFA rankings. My immediate aim is to qualify for the 2019 Asian Cup and we are in a pretty good position for that. It is good to see that we are moving upwards. As long as we are moving up, and in that sense FIFA rankings can be a guide for us."

Based on the criticism from certain quarters that India only plays against Nepal, Palestine or Cambodia, Constantine commented regarding whether he picks the teams to play against, "We need to play games, not for FIFA rankings but for the ability of the players to gel and understand each other...Our plan was to play as often as possible. We pick teams that are available and that suites us depending on who are going to play in the qualifiers. There is no point for us to go and play China when we are playing, say, Lebanon in a qualifier. We are not going to play a Jordan, we are not going to play a Qatar. Yes, we plan out which country we will play against, but we did not plan around the FIFA rankings."

He is quite satisfied that India will get around 10 international matches this year, including three in the Asian Cup qualifiers. "It (the number of matches) depends on the calendar of national league and international qualifiers. We will play 10 or 12 games this year. There are five FIFA windows and in each window you get nine days and in that nine, you usually play two matches. So, playing ten matches is a good number."

Asked if the 1-0 win over Kyrgyzstan was the best match for India under him in his second stint, Constantine said, "No, it was a fantastic result but the same in case of Myanmar (1-0 win in Asian Cup qualifiers) also. I don't want to pick one or two matches and say this was the best match."

"Winning the SAFF Championships by beating Afghanistan was fantastic. Beating Guam with 10 men was superb. We had some very good results in the last two years. Kyrgyzstan match was the best which was the last, so the last is always the best. We have played some very good football and won games. We have also won games but not played our best," stated the coach who began his second stint with a string of losses in the 2018 World Cup qualifiers after which he had put his job on the line before getting a one-year extension in March.

He continued, "I said at the very first press conference that there are going to be dark days. At that time, we have not beaten Nepal for two years, we were at 173rd in FIFA rankings then. During the World Cup qualifiers we were not a team, we had so many new players, from different systems, different coaches, different philosophy... You cannot change all these in three, four or five games, that is not possible. It is not overnight. The average age of the team is from earlier 30 to 23 now, you have a team of the future now, for at least 5-6 years."

Constantine refused to take the bait when asked if he would be interested in continuing beyond next year if the All India Football Federation wants him.

The coach who has given debuts to more than 30 players in his just over 1-year stint said that "Our next game (Asian Cup qualifiers) is in September and I am not looking past September. I am speaking honestly. First, India must qualify and then after that it's a whole different situation. First, let us qualify and see what happens."