Thai media: "U23 Vietnam has changed Thai football"

Coach Worrawoot Srimaka (left) has returned to lead the Thailand U23 team to replace Bulgarian coach Zoran Jankovic.

Siam Sport newspaper assessed that the statement "it will take a long time for Vietnamese or Malaysian football to catch up with Thailand" has officially been answered. That is, U23 Thailand, with the position of "big brother" of Southeast Asia, but soon received a bitter defeat in the group stage of the recent U.23 Asian Cup, in the meantime U.23 Malaysia shocked Saudi Arabia to enter the quarterfinals and played on par with U.23 Korea, while U.23 Vietnam made the entire Asian football world admire with its miraculous journey to the final after overcoming formidable opponents of the continent such as Australia, Iraq, Qatar.

“The rise of Vietnamese or Malaysian football is not only at the youth level but also at the national team level, which has been a long-term preparation process, based on the investment in youth football of these countries for many years. Vietnamese youth football has participated in the U.20 World Cup, but Thailand should not remember that yet,” Siam Sport commented and added:

“Meanwhile, Thai football was so confident that it was complacent because it thought that just by bringing a moderate squad it would be able to win regional tournaments (like the SEA Games last year), so it did not fully appreciate the movement of regional football. The FAT's hasty handing over of all the teams from the Thai national team to the youth teams to foreign coaches was also a mistake, because it ignored the inheritance and dedication of Thai coaches.”

The shock of being eliminated early in the U.23 Asian tournament and witnessing regional opponents such as U.23 Vietnam or Malaysia causing shock has made Thai fans extremely indignant and they have used the typical example of the playing style and fighting spirit of the U.23 Vietnam team to criticize FAT's subjectivity and underestimation of the opponent when they neglected the young players of Thai football.

Last week, FAT president Somyot Poompanmoung had to convene meetings to dissect the failure of Thai football at the U.23 Asian Cup and reassess the strength of regional opponents.

Mr. Somyot Poompanmoung has decided to replace a series of head coaches of youth teams from U.23 and below, except for the national team which is still held by veteran coach Milovan Rajevac. In particular, the Thai U.23 team was handed back to coach Worrawoot Srimaka (who helped win the 2017 SEA Games).

In addition, the youth teams from U.21 to U.17 are no longer directly managed by coaches from the Ekkono company, which cooperates with FAT to transfer youth football training technology. Instead, FAT will let coach Srimaka, in addition to leading the U.23 team, also manage the U.21 team, while the U.19 and U.17 teams will also be handed over to other Thai coaches.

Siam Sport newspaper believes that this change is reasonable and necessary, because Thai coaches understand young Thai players better than foreign coaches and help them progress faster. Except for the Thai national team which has many players with international experience, the upcoming Thai U.23 team must change to have a truly strong force to aim for the goal of participating in the 2020 Olympics.

In addition, Siam Sport also urged FAT to pay more attention to the two Asian youth tournaments in 2018, which are the U.19 finals in Indonesia and the U.16 finals in Malaysia. If they fail again, Thai youth football will definitely have to be radically reformed.