Stephen Constantine Reflects on Globetrotting Managerial Career

From Sir Bobby Robson to Terry Venables, from Sir Alf Ramsey to Roy Hodgson, from Gareth Southgate to Glenn Hoddle, we’ve seen quite a few English managers make their mark on international football over the past century. However, no Englishman has coached as many different national teams as Stephen Constantine (6).

Born in London on October 16, 1962, to Greek-Cypriot parents, Constantine spent a good part of his childhood in Cyprus – an adolescence that was marred with constant strife and heartbreak. His mother died a month before his 13th birthday, whilst his relationship with his father was never the best. It’s why, at just 16 years of age, Constantine decided to leave home and take a ferry from Cyprus to Greece before boarding a bus to France. With the French workers on strike, he was redirected to Belgium, where he took a ferry to Dover, before getting  on a bus to southeast London, finalizing a five-day travel journey. He remained in London until December 12, 1982, when he landed in New York City, kicking off a decade-long journey in the States, which saw him represent the Pennsylvania Stoners and the New York Pancyprian-Freedoms before hanging up his boots at the age of 26 due to a serious knee injury.

“When I look back, I think, ‘Oh my God, how did I survive?’ I honestly don’t know, but I think the one thing that was always on my mind is that I wanted to play football, which meant I couldn’t smoke, drink, or go out late, because if I wanted to play football, I’ve got to be ready,” stated Constantine in an exclusive R.Org interview. “Maybe someone’s going to see me and I’ll have an opportunity….playing football was always the first thing on my head, and I think that’s what kept me out of trouble. Back at 17-18 years of age, it was quite rough in some places and I could have gotten in with the wrong crowd, but fortunately, I didn’t. And then, going to the States, I had my brother there at the time, and I made a few friends. Obviously, there was a large Greek community in Astoria, Queens, where I started playing football at Queensborough Community College. It wasn’t easy, and when I reminisce, I think I’ve done well to keep my head above water.”

Leaving his Mark in the Indian Subcontinent

Constantine headed back to England in 1992 and collected his coaching badges before starting his coaching career in the Cypriot lower divisions. However, his first big break came in 1999, when he was appointed as the new manager of the Nepal national team. Constantine made an immediate impact by leading the Gorkhalis all the way to the 1999 South Asian Games Final, where they lost 1-0 to Bangladesh on home soil. Despite this crushing defeat in Kathmandu, the King of Nepal, Birendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev, saw fit to knight Constantine with the Order of Gorkha Dakshina Bahu the following year.

He departed his first international position in March 2001; three months later, Birendra and members of his immediate family were assassinated in Narayanhiti Palace, ending his 29-year reign. Constantine spent a year with Bournemouth’s youth teams before returning to the Subcontinent in May 2002, taking charge of the India national team.

Despite having more people (1.46 billion) than any other country on Earth, India is a footballing minnow, currently ranking 142nd in the FIFA rankings. They have qualified for the FIFA World Cup just once in 1950, only to withdraw due to travel costs, lack of practice time, and prioritizing the Olympics above the World Cup. India’s footballing golden age came over a half-century ago, winning the Asian Games in 1951 and 1962, and losing the 1964 Asian Cup Final to Israel. Since then, India have made it to just four editions of the Asian Cup (finishing bottom of their group each time), whilst they also haven’t made it to an Asian Games quarterfinal since 1982.

“Indians have been playing football for years; in fact, the Durand Cup is the fifth-oldest competition in the world, going on since 1888. However, the needs of the people — the need to eat, the need to sleep, the need to work – far outweigh the need to play football. Football is a luxury for them, and the first time that I went, they had a 16-team professional league, the I-League. There is interest, but most parents in India don’t see football as a way to make a living; they are pushing the kids to get an education, because if you don’t get a degree, it’s tough. And in India, when you apply for the job, it’s not 1 in 200, it’s 1 in 2,000. If you’re not at the top of your game academically, you’re likely not to get the job. There’s massive importance put on the kids from a very early age: study and get your degree so that you can feed your family. I don’t think it’s about the population, I think it’s about the culture. Football begins at home, and in Europe or South America, you have a son or daughter, and by the time they’re 3-4 years old, they’re developing their technical skills with a ball at their feet.”

Planting the Seeds in Africa

Constantine spent three years in charge of the Blue Tigers, leading them to a silver medal at the 2003 Afro-Asian Games, before making a long-awaited return to England and spending the 2005/06 season as an assistant coach for Millwall. After a seven-month sabbatical, he returned to international management and launched a new professional journey in Southeastern Africa with Malawi, overseeing the Flames’ progress for 14 months. He was out of work for just 10 months before taking charge of Sudan in February 2009. Despite living in a war-torn, impoverished country, Constantine nevertheless made the most of his opportunity and spent nearly a year at the helm of the Falcons of Jediane.

“It was the early signs of civil war in Sudan, and the United Nations had issued an arrest warrant for Omar al-Bashir, and I was actually told not to go training, because it wasn’t safe. Whenever you go to someone else’s country, and they invite you in and offer you a job, you have to adapt and adhere to their culture and beliefs. I’m there to teach them how to play football, not how to live their lives, or not to eat this food instead of that. We can bring a lot to people because of the organization, because of the structure, because of the football that we have been taught, but you can’t teach culture. A lot of guys who go into these countries feel that they need to change everything, but as foreigners, we’re the ones who need to change. We need to find a way how to develop and help players, that’s why we’re there – to help them play football.”

“There was also a time when I wanted to go and see a player 4.5 hours south of Khartoum, and I was told not to go. I saw him play in Khartoum and really liked him, but I wanted to go see him in his environment. So we drove 4.5 hours through the desert, and my boss, Dr. Kamal Shaddat, rang me and said, ‘Stephen, where are you? I said, ‘Doctor, I have no idea, there’s sand all around me, the driver seems to know where he’s going: a village called Hasa Hessa, where this left back was from. He said, ‘No, no, it’s very difficult there, you’re going into bandit country,’ but I told him, ‘We’ve already driven 3 hours, and we’re not turning back now. About 20 minutes later, an armed truck pulled up and stopped us on the road, and four guys jumped out with AK-47s. They didn’t say a word to me, they just took me out of the car, put me in the back of this Jeep, and drove me to the stadium. They were security, but I didn’t know that…I thought I was a goner at that time. This is going to sound really reckless, but, honestly, I am only interested in the football. If we can make people happy and bring people together by playing football, then I’m gonna do my bit.”

Constantine returned to Cyprus in March 2010 for a brief spell in charge of APEP Pitsilia, followed by nearly two years in charge of Nea Salamis, which he guided to promotion to the Cypriot First Division, followed by a brief spell as manager of Ethnikos Achna. He then became the assistant manager of Greek club Apollon Smyrni in November 2013; that same month, he established the British Coaches Abroad Association.

Closing the Loop with the White Tigers

After the 2013/14 season’s culmination, Constantine decided to head back to Africa and take charge of the Rwanda national team, leading the Wasps to their highest-ever ranking of 68th in December 2014. But rather than oversee Rwanda’s 2016 African Nations Championship on home soil, Constantine decided he had unfinished business with India and took charge for a second stint in January 2015.

“My first stint in charge of India was fantastic. We won the LG Cup vs Vietnam’s U23s and drew with Jamaica at Molineux. We had top players like Debjit Ghosh, Bhaichung Bhutia, Climax Lawrence, and Jo Paul Ancheri, who could’ve played outside of India if they wanted to. And then 10 years later, I got the chance to go back, and this time there were more people interested in football, more opportunities, more money in the game. I remember my boss, Praful Patel, saying, ‘Coach, what about the World Cup?’ I said ‘Sir, with all respect, I said, we need to dominate our own region and qualify for the Asian Cup on a regular basis. In 2015, we were ranked 173rd in the world, and I said, ‘I’m going to take India to the Asian Cup,’ which at that time was like Iceland going to a World Cup. Not because we didn’t have the talent, but because there’s a lack of development across India, in terms of how we develop the players.”

“45 players turned up for the first camp, and of those 45 players, 9 made the Asian Cup Finals that we went to in 2019. My squad’s average age was 23 and 6 months. Whenever I take a national team, without an extra cost to the Federation, I tell them, ‘Let me run the under-23s as well, so I can develop an under-23 team. It was easy to bring those players into the first team because we had the same staff in the senior team as we did in the under-23 team. We had a fantastic time, and when I left, we were 95th in the world. But the All India Football Federation gave me the tools to do the work. They gave me everything that they could possibly give me — financials, camps, facilities, the ability for me to bring in staff from outside.

Obviously, we had a lot of staff from India as well working with us. And we just had a one-track mind: our job is to qualify for the Asian Cup, and when we did, we actually won our group above Kyrgyzstan and a couple of other teams. We went to the Asian Cup, won our first game, lost to the hosts UAE, 2-0, and we were a 93rd-minute penalty vs. Bahrain away from going to the last 16. We had a great 4 years there. And in fact, I was shortlisted for the India job, only two months ago, to go back for a third time, but they decided to go local.”

Constantine then headed back to Cyprus and enjoyed a brief spell as Pafos’ sporting director and then first-team manager, sowing the seeds for a sensational few years that saw them win the Cypriot Cup before winning the league in 2025. Today, in just their 12th season in existence, Pafos are competing in the UEFA Champions League and have already managed to secure major results like a draw vs. Monaco and a win vs. Villarreal.

Making History With Pakistan

He then returned to India and coached East Bengal FC from July 2022 to April 2023, before taking charge of the Pakistan national team on September 30, 2023. After kicking off his tenure with a 0-0 draw vs. Cambodia, Constantine led Pakistan to their first-ever victory in World Cup qualifying with a 1-0 win against the Cambodians, in what also happened to be Pakistan’s first home match in eight years. However, the Falcons would lose their next six by a combined 26-1 scoreline, prompting Constantine to announce his resignation after Pakistan announced they were looking at other options. Just four months later, Pakistan came crawling back and offered him an interim gig, where, after losing 2-0 at Syria and 1-0 at Myanmar, he was let go.

“I never saw so many grown men cry as when we beat Cambodia in Islamabad; it wasn’t young kids, but grown men in their 50s and 60s, who were crying because they were going to the World Cup qualifying group stage for the first time. A lot of them were not playing regular football, the facilities are poor, they’re not getting paid, so it was just incredible for them to be able to come through all of that. It was just an unbelievable moment…that win changed football in Pakistan. They’ve now elected a president as their FA, and I wish them luck because they’re going to need it, for sure. But it was fantastic to see that, and the talent inside of Pakistan just needs to be groomed and developed like everything else…that’s the problem.”

“I’m proud of players and staff more than anything, and I want to try and give them credit. If you knew what the players and the staff had to deal with on a daily basis, you would give them all a medal. The lack of appreciation from the people running Pakistani football was incredible; when I was there, we were being run by a normalization committee from FIFA, and so the 3-4 guys that were heading up the association on a ‘temporary’ basis, albeit in charge for three years, did a fantastic job under the circumstances. But there is no professional league in Pakistan. It was like India back in the day, when they didn’t have a league, but tournaments, and every two months, one state would have a tournament that you’d go and apply to play in. They’re still playing tournaments in Pakistan, and we have several diaspora players who are playing in different countries for Pakistan, but in terms of the local players and the nonsense they’ve had to go through between the facilities and lack of payment, man, those guys are the heroes.”

At 63 years of age, Stephen Constantine has racked up a quarter-century bouncing around from South Asia to the Eastern Mediterranean to Africa to England and gradually carving out a legacy in multiple different regions of the world. Today, he’s currently with APEA Akrotiri in the Cypriot second tier after six months away from his last international coaching gig.