Is Constantine moving on? National team coach tweets website with detailed resume
THE INDIAN NATIONAL TEAM COACH Stephen Constantine has shared a revamped website, and the timing of it is raising some eyebrows.
— StephenConstantine (@StephenConstan) November 14, 2016
Constantine, who took over more than a year ago, has had considerable impact in the Blue Tigers' performance. Under his watch dozens of young players have made their international debut, the average age in the team has come down drastically, India have won the SAFF Championship, reached the 3rd round of Asian Cup qualifiers, got a historic win aginst Puerto Rico in an international friendly and reached the FIFA rank of 137, their highest in 6 years.
But despite all that, when the British coach's contract extension came up for discussion, AIFF offered him a new deal with a lot of added terms that many view as constraining upon his ability to work independently; something that may have resulted from him being vocal about the adverse effects ISL's congested fixtures have on players' fitness and the training camps and tours he planned for the national team being cancelled due to ISL.
The site that Constantine shared, which underwent a makeover a few weeks ago, looks much like a resume portal. Upon visiting the website, the home page greets users with a slideshow of Constantine conducting practice and celebrating a trophy win with them, a collection of YouTube videos, a link to his latest blog post (he has been writing that blog for a long time) and a prominent link to his 'professional profile' that includes a full list of his qualifications and experiences in football around the world. The interface seems to be geared for a prospective employer.
If this is a sign that Constantine has chosen to move on, this will undoubtedly be a setback as the ground-work he has done so far in terms of bleeding in a new generation of players is far from over and the Blue Tigers could certainly use another year or two of the out-of-the-box constructive intitiatives that has set his second spell with the Indian national team apart.
