ISL made Indian football universal, says Stephen Constantine

India’s head coach Stephen Constantine has credited the Indian Super League for the national team’s progress in recent times, saying it had made the country “universal”.

“The ISL has made us universal. It has told everybody in the world that Indians not only play football but we’re not bad either, and we have some good players,” he said at the end of the AIFF’s two-day workshop for scouting of coaches in Kolkata on Wednesday.

India registered five away wins during a 10-month unbeaten streak, which could propel them from their present 132nd to the 101st spot in the Fifa rankings, due to be updated on Thursday.

“I would be a little bit happier if Bolivia didn’t beat Argentina, because then we would have been 97. Having said that, yes I’m happy and we can absolutely do better.”

The Englishman refused to talk about the contentious ISL-I League merger, saying: “That’s above my pay scale. But it’s a nice question. All I am interested is that there are games with Indian players, so that I can select them for the national team. I’ve said quite a bit about a lot of things. We don’t need to be talking about that today.”

Constantine said Indian football was on the right track as competition for places was fierce. “I don’t think we are dependent on Sunil Chhetri. He happens to be in the right place at the right time, which is why we play him. There’s fierce competition for all places. Now at the senior national team they are killing themselves (for places in the starting XI).

“We have three or four who can play left-back. We have four-five for right back. No one is guaranteed. This is the competition we want. There’s no complacency in our national team at the moment.

“I believe we have the nucleus of a squad. The average age is 24. We have built the team to make the Asian Cup, and beyond, hopefully for the next four-six years.”

The 54-year-old, who has worked with both Baichung Bhutia and Chhetri, said they were two different players.

“They both are great players in their own right. Baichung may be a little bit more aggressive. But Chhetri is different. He can play a little bit wider, he can come off the flanks. He can give us different looks if you like. There’s a quite a big difference.

“Chhetri is a player who has been consistent, he’s professional. He looks after himself. He is a great leader. We are happy with him obviously but we have plenty of others who are coming up. We will continue to look and search for players who will help us,” he added.