Trail of surprises for Indian Football team as Coach Constantine steps down after the dramatic Asian Cup exit

January 15: Indian football team had to face a streak of surprises as their head coach Stephen Constantine stepped down after the team's shocking defeat to Bahrain which led to its exit from the showpiece Asian Cup.

 

The official twitter handle of All India Football Federation revealed that the 56 year old Constantine has resigned on Tuesday.

“Mr. @StephenConstan has announced his resignation as the Head Coach of the Indian National Team. We haven't received any official communication from him yet but we accept his decision & thank him for his contribution to #Indianfootball: Mr. Kushal Das, General Secretary of AIFF”, the tweet said.

Constantine's resignation came after the Blue Tigers suffered a heart breaking 1-0 loss against Bahrain at the Sharjah Stadium on Monday.

 

As the final Group A match was 0-0 till the 90th minute, India were on the verge of booking its maiden knock-out round berth, when Bahrain earned a penalty which the West Asian team converted to win the game under dramatic circumstances.

The defeat meant that it finished at the bottom of the four-team Group A to crash out of the tournament.

 

Constantine’s contract was to end on January 31 anyways as he was given one-year contract extension twice after taking over the power of the team in 2015 for initial two year tenure.