ISL 2022-23: Haven’t come here to finish last: East Bengal FC head coach Stephen Constantine

East Bengal FC head coach Stephen Constantine has said that he hasn’t taken up the manager role to let his team finish last and they will try to give their best in the upcoming season. The last two seasons haven’t been ideal for the Red and Yellow brigade as they haven’t been able to come up with a collective effort.

East Bengal had finished the previous season of the Hero Indian Super League as cellar dwellers of the tournament. The Kolkata giants could only manage a solitary win in their 20 matches and their head coach Stephen Constantine will be determined to turn the tables in the upcoming season.

Furthermore, they could only manage three wins in the 2020-21 season and finished in ninth place in the standings.

Constantine revealed why he joined East Bengal in the pre-match press conference, “I deliberately didn’t join any (Indian) club after the Indian national team job. It’s been three years and East Bengal FC asked me nicely. It was an opportunity that I felt a bit like an unfinished business having not done it at the club level (in India). So it was a great opportunity for me and here I am.”

As it is known, Constantine has the experience of coaching the Blue Tigers and he believes his experience of coaching in Indiawill definitely help him in getting the best out of his players.

The English manager said, “Absolutely. I understand how Indian players think, and how they feel and that for sure is an advantage. But the past is the past and I can’t change what happened last season or the season before. I can change what’s going to happen next. We have worked very hard in the short time that we have been together. I had 12 players when I arrived here but now we have a squad of 26-27 players and they have worked very hard for me so far.”

He added, “But the proof is in the pudding and we will know on Friday how far we have come. We are not the finished article but haven’t come to lose the game on Friday and I haven’t come to East Bengal FC to finish in the last place. So, I will do everything I can to make it work.”

Emami East Bengal FC will play the curtain raiser of Hero Indian Super League 2022-23 against previous season runners-up Kerala Blasters FC on 7th October at the JLN Stadium, Kochi