India, Jan. 16 -- "He was one of the humblest guys I have met. And he was more than a decent coach who knew what he wanted from his players." That was Stephen Constantine on Aloke Mukherjee, once upon a time his assistant-coach for India. "I love this job and I want people working with me to love this job. Aloke did."

In charge of a team in Cyprus, Constantine and I were talking on Wednesday, three days after Mukherjee released his memoirs in Bangla, co-authored by sports journalist Arghya Bandopadhyay. Bhaichung Bhutia was the immediate reason for reaching out to the two-time former India coach. "You know how Stephen could be," said Bhutia at the launch. "He would yell, say you were not fit to play for India. We needed Aloke da to belie...