Coach Kiatisak resigns from Thailand national team

After the Thai team officially lost hope of participating in the 2018 World Cup finals, on the evening of March 31 (Vietnam time), coach Kiatisak Senamuang suddenly announced his decision to resign on his personal social network page Intasgam.

A few hours later, the Football Association of Thailand (FAT) also confirmed that they had accepted Coach Kiatisak's resignation. Thus, after more than 4 years in a temporary capacity and then officially leading the Thai team since 2014 with many successes such as 2 AFF Cup championships in 2014 and 2016, winning the SEA Games gold medal in 2013, and finishing fourth at the Asian Games in 2014, Coach Kiatisak's reign finally ended.

Coach Kiatisak leaves to make way for a more qualified coach to take the Thai team to new heights. Photo: AFP

However, Coach Kiatisak left with his head held high after having led the Thai team to the third qualifying round for the 2018 World Cup. However, it is clear that when approaching the higher level of the continent, the Thai team still lacks many things. As a result, they lost 6 matches, drew 1, conceded 19 goals, and scored only 3 goals.

Thai football now has great ambitions to participate in the World Cup as well as compete for high positions in the Asian Cup, after successfully developing the National Championship, which was full of match-fixing, into the Thai League, a model of the attractive English Premier League, and from there is providing the Thai team with a very high quality source of players.

For that reason, right after the 2016 AFF Cup championship, there was news that FAT wanted to find a more prestigious coach, possibly a foreign coach, to improve the Thai team, but wanted to give coach Kiatisak more opportunities. However, in the end, when the Thai team failed in the 2018 World Cup qualifiers in Asia, it was also the time when the former coach of HAGL Club submitted his resignation so that FAT could develop the Thai team as desired.

According to TNO