AFC Asian Cup: Constantine believes India can qualify for knockouts

“I think it's a group from where we can qualify to the knockout stage. I won't say it's an easy group but we have the ability to win against some of these teams and on our day, we can beat most of them," said Constantine.

Stephen Constantine (right), with India captain Sunil Chhetri and team manager Shanmugam Venkatesh at the draw ceremony.

National coach Stephen Constantine expressed confidence that India can “qualify to the knock-out stage” of the Continental championship, the draw for which was announced on Friday.

India was drawn in Group A of the AFC Asian Cup UAE 2019.

“I think it's a group from where we can qualify to the knockout stage. I won't say it's an easy group but we have the ability to win against some of these teams and on our day, we can beat most of them,” Constantine, who attended the draw along with team manager Shanmugam Venkatesh told aiff.com

“All these teams will give us different kinds of problems and we have to be prepared before facing them in the AFC Asian Cup UAE 2019,” he added.

Meanwhile, Captain Sunil Chhetri along with Iranian legend Ali Daei, iconic Chinese player Sun Jihai and Philippines’ star Philip James Younghusband coordinated the picks for the four respective pots helping AFC General Secretary Dato Windsor John to conduct the draw.