COACH SPEAK

NEW DELHI: Eleven victories in the last 13 matches, 31 goals in the said games, and a winning streak of six matches ­ the Indian football team is surely in the middle of one of its best international runs.A lot of credit for this has to go to 54-year-old Englishman Stephen Constantine , who is currently in his second stint as coach of the national team."We have had quite a bumpy road which is exactly what I expected when I took over (in 2015). The biggest challenge has been getting rid of the can't-win-away tag. Considering the results, the current squad has done really well," Stephen Constantine told TOI in an exclusive email interview."In the process, I have handed international debuts to 32 players.While some of them have lived up to the expectations, others couldn't.That's football. In the last two years, we have matured as a team and I think that we will continue to do so in the coming months," he added.The Indian team has won four of its last five away matches, with their latest win coming in Yangon on Tuesday when they beat Myanmar 1-0, their first victory in that land in 64 years, in their AFC Asian Cup qualifiers clash."It was a very big win for a number of reasons. It gives us the confidence and the belief that we are in contention to qualify from this group (A). Prior to the game against Myanmar, if you had come up to me and said that we would get a point, I'd have gladly taken that. Getting three points is like winning an away gold simply because Myanmar is always so difficult to play in Yangon.The victory has provided us a platform from where we can build on.The entire squad feels good that we have been able to break the (64-yearold) jinx," he said.After their wins against Cambodia -their first away victory in a friendly in 12 years, and Myanmar, India, currently ranked 132, is expected to be ranked just outside the top 100 when the new rankings are out later this month which will be by far their best in a long time.Going by India's red-hot form, does he believe qualifying for the AFC Asian Cup could actually turn into a reality? to win it, is massive. But we cannot get complacent and need to keep our feet on the ground. We shouldn't be falling into the trap, which in this case is Macau. I always go back to the World Cup qualifiers, where we took Guam lightly and paid the price. I want to take one game at a time," said Constantine , referring to India's 1-2 loss to tiny Guam in the first leg of their World Cup qualifier in 2015.India are set to face Lebanon in a friendly on June 7 before taking on Kyrgyzstan at home on June 13 in their next Asian Cup qualifier match."We intend to get something from all our home matches and steal a point or two from away games.The fact that we have taken our first three points away from home makes our next match against Kyrgyzstan all the more important," Constantine concluded.On AIFF 's commercial partners now having a direct say in national team affairs, including the selection of coaches: I don't have any opinion on that. It doesn't affect me.On senior members within the AIFF asking him to take the national team to the Asian Cup and not focus on anything else: They are right and I am doing that and will continue to do so.