Controlling the centre?

Good opening principal entails that players, especially beginners like me, should try to control the center. 

My question is, am I supposed to control the center for just the opening or do I keep fighting for the center all through the game?

It is important the whole game. The person that controls the centre can easily switch from side to side in attack and defence.

But the whole board counts. Especially in the endgame free pawns on the flanks can be stonger than free pawns in the centre (but the person controlling the centre still has a better chance of caching the enemy pawns).

Hi! My name is Lauren Goodkind and I’m a chess coach and chess book author based in California: www.ChessByLauren.com.  

You want to try to control the center for the entire game.  Try to have at least one pawn in the center.  

  I hope that helps.

A space advantage becomes less consequential as more and more pieces come off the board. So control of the center is most important during the opening and early middle game, but is still rather important through the late middle game. In the endgame, other factors will usually dominate.

With control in the center you control the flow of the game... With control in center you can decide for example when to start attack and so on... There is big importance in center control so try to fight for it from move 1.