PTI - India football head coach Stephen Constantine has pressed for an international friendly before playing against Iran in September in the 2018 football World Cup Qualification Preliminary Round Two here. “I need more time for preparations. I need friendly games. I need my team to play a friendly before we take on Iran,” he said.

India play Guam on June 16 and then take on Iran on September 8 here in Group D of the Preliminary Round Two of the qualifiers. Constantine said his wards need games to get experience to play at the international level.

“These boys need games. Last year they played twice in 12 months, so we have a lot of boys who do not have international experience. They will learn on the job and hopefully learn it quickly so that we can go to the next stage,” he said after India lost to Oman.

Constantine said India’s performance against Oman was much better than the performance put up against Nepal in Round One. “We showed not only to Oman, but a lot of other teams that we are going to get better every game. This was a better performance than the game we won against Nepal ... So I think we are moving in the right direction,” he said.