Stephen holds key to Nepal's success
By Biplav Gautam
(October 2002)

In the brief period Stephen Constantine headed Nepal’s national team, he brought tremendous success to a nation that had seen its football program in disarray for nearly a decade. The Englishman guided Nepal’s first team to a silver medal at the 8th SAF Games and took a rag-tag bunch of 16 year-olds all the way to the final round of the Asian U-16 Youth Tournament in Vietnam.

Along with the great results, the national team also played attractive and inspired football that had gone missing for quite some time. In only his first tournament in charge of the national side at a competition in Dhaka, Bangladesh, the Bengali media raved at the performance of our booters against top sides including the much fancied Ghanian Olympic team.

Nepal started receiving a great deal of international notoriety with numerous reputed football magazines and television shows traveling to Nepal to profile Constantine and his Mountain Lions. Unfortunately, as soon as the fanfare started and Nepal was on the verge of moving to the next echelon of Asian football, everything came crashing down in an instant! Politics reared its ugly head turning ANFA into a bi-polar institution and making Coach Constantine’s job nearly impossible. Subsequently, he resigned as national team manager and in turn Nepali football fell flat on its face and has since been in complete shambles.

Constantine returned to pursue a head coaching job in England but the “good old boy’s network” over there pretty much shut the door on any challenging managerial opportunities. After months of frustrations Constantine received an intriguing coaching offer and now has come back to save Nepali football! No, he is not once again Nepal’s national team manager, but probably fills a more important role for Nepali football as the new manager of India’s national team. 

As much as we Nepalis hate to admit it, the truth of the matter is that Nepali culture is very elastic to that of our neighbors to the south. There is not a Nepali person who does not grow-up on a strong diet of Bollywood entertainment and a plethora of other Indian imports. The recent surge of popularity of cricket and the strong performances by our cricketers can largely be attributed to the daily bombardment of cricket programming from India that hit the Nepali airwaves.

Nepal’s football authorities have continually proven their ignorance and incompetence in running and developing the simplest game at home. Their apathy and greed has turned Nepali football into an income generating machine for themselves, but for the vast majority of Nepalis, football has become one of a list of growing catastrophes that has hit the country in the last few years.

We have reached a point where sadly the future of Nepali football is basically in the hands of India and the subsequent trickle down effect that would transpire if they were ever to be a dominant force in football. Luckily for us, Coach Constantine is off to a flying start and has given Indian football the wake-up call it has long been in search of. 

In his first tournament, he guided the Indian under 23 team to an impressive and monumental championship victory in the LG Cup tournament in Vietnam. Then a few weeks later India pulled-off a solid victory against Uzbekistan’s national team in a friendly in New Delhi. Now there is much enthusiasm in the Indian football circles and there are high hopes for their Asian Games exploits (India already beat Bangladesh 3 – 0 in its first group game earlier today). 

Currently, the better Nepali footballers have secured contracts in excess of $1000 a month in the Bangladeshi leagues giving hope to the younger generation of players of financial security by pursuing a career in the game they’ve taken to their hearts. The riches and glory that would be on offer in a solid Indian national league would be unrivaled and undoubtedly turn thousands of Nepali youngsters towards the beautiful game. Along with something for Nepali footballer to aspire to, god willing, it may also give our football administrators the blueprint for running the sport within our borders and finally realizing that Nepali football will never progress if we continue to hold Mickey-Mouse tournaments and fail to develop a proper national league. 

The ongoing Birthday Cup has shed some much needed positive light on the state of the game in Nepal. The participation and more importantly the strong performances of regional and non Kathmandu clubs shows the nationwide strength of Nepali football. Even the visiting Indian teams were stacked with players of Nepali decent. It was especially pleasing to hear from several of the coaches that many of their best players had not even made the trip to Kathmandu because they were playing in various border leagues. This only goes to show the abundance of untapped talent that must be lurking all across the nation. If anything, it once again highlights Nepal’s pressing need for a national league with teams in all regions of the country so that Nepal’s best talent can be identified and groomed, while allowing the entire nation and not just Kathmanduites to experience the thrills and joys of watching top class football. 

Instead of manifesting our own destiny, Nepal’s football fortunes will most likely be directly linked to India’s development. What else is new? It did not have to happen this way, but unfortunately that is the karma we have been stuck with. At his press conference when he announced his resignation as Nepal’s national team manager, Stephen Constantine said that he would never forget Nepal and would always do his best to help Nepali football develop. Indeed, he has kept his word, be it in a very unconventional fashion. While rooting for India’s national team might be proclaimed as heresy, the one chant all Nepalis should be singing in unison is – “Go Stephen, Go!”