Mumbai, June 2: India may have blanked Chinese Taipei 5-0 to open their campaign of the Hero Continental Cup on a rousing note here Friday night but chief coach Stephen Constantine has warned his players not to get carried away with the result as they will face much stronger opponents as the tournament progresses.
“We had a good game but we cannot get carried away. We have much tougher games coming up against much stronger opponents. I am happy with the result and for the players but for me it is past now,” Constantine told the reporters at the post match press conference.
Skipper Sunil Chhetri, who is just one shy of his 100th international game scored his third hat-trick for the country, his first in eight years. Pranoy Halder and Udanta Singh scored the other goals. Constantine also heaped praise for the young players in the team specially Anirudh Thapa and Subhasish Bose besides Chhetri and asserted that everything clicked and worked for the team after a long time. “There’s no surprise (on the way Chhetri played) and that is why I play him. It was also Anirudh’s first full start for India, the same for Subhasish Bose and I thought they both had good games,” Constantine added. India will next play Kenya Monday.
Chhetri seeks improvement
Mumbai: Even though Chinese Taipei coach Gary White feels that the young players in his team will look up to Sunil Chhetri someday, the star India striker asserted that he has to improve a lot before he can attain the stature where international footballers will aim to emulate him. “I feel I haven’t yet reached that stature where international footballers will look up to me,” Chhetri said.