Indian Football Team Ends Year at 135th World Rank, Its Best FIFA Ranking In 7 Years
Coach Stephen Constantine gives credit to the players and says India is building a team for the future.
The Indian football team has ended the year 2016 at a 135th position in the latest FIFA rankings which is their best rank in the last seven years.
BCCL
India's previous best ranking was 134th spot when they finished the year 2009 at that spot. The Indian team had a fruitful 2016 worth remembering. They had scored a win over Puerto Rico, ranked 38 places above them, in September.
National coach Stephen Constantine attributed the upsurge to all his players and the staff.
"It can't be achieved without the help of the players. We have an exceptional batch of players as we are in the process of building the team for the future," Constantine said.
But Constantine wasn't willing to go overboard with the new rankings.
BCCL
"One of my priorities was to improve the national team ranking when I took over. The results do state that we have improved but there's still a lot more to achieve," he added.
"Football results are always determined by the support which one receives off the field. I am grateful both to Mr. Patel (AIFF President Praful Patel) and Mr. Das (AIFF General Secretary Kushal Das) for allowing me to do the things in the manner I wanted to do. Both of them envisage a long-term plan for Indian football and it's a total team effort," he maintained.
BCCL
"There have been so many positives for us in 2016. Right from the National Team winning the SAFF Championship to the Women's Team winning the SAG Gold to the National Team beating a team as high as Puerto Rico 4-1 (ranked 114 at that time) in an International Friendly, things are looking bright," he said.
"The developments off the field saw us win the 2016 AFC Award for the Best Developing Member Association and we also had Uvena Fernandes, the first even Indian referee to officiate a World Cup final match. And off course we need to remember that we had an Indian Club in the AFC Cup final for the first time ever and one of our youth development product becoming the first Indian player to play in the Europa League," he added.
BCCL
The draw for the AFC Asian Cup Qualifiers UAE 2017 will be held on January 23, 2017 and India would be playing their first match in the Qualifiers on March 28.
