Sports Notes - Manchester United Eke Out 2-1 Win Over Thailand - "The Devil Made Them Do It"

James Loving - National Radio Text Service

The gritty little Thai's fought Man U's millionaire super stars to the tooth and nail. You want millionaire super stars? Try this out…David Beckham, Fabien Barthez, Ryan Giggs, Ruud Van Nistelrooy, and Juan Sebastian Veron, Dwight Yorke, Nicky Butt, Paul Scholes, Roy Keane, Andy Cole, Quinton Fortune, Raimond Van der Gouw, Dennis Irwin, Phillip Neville, Ole Gunner Solskjaer, Gary Neville, Ronny Johnson, Wes Brown, Mikael Silvestre and Luke Chadwick. Man U was ready. They came with everything and everybody but the kitchen sink and Beckham's famous wife Posh Spice. It was awesome.

Monday July 30, 2001

You would think that the lord was returning to part the Red Sea again the way Thai soccer fans reacted to the announcement in April that Manchester Untied was coming to Bangkok to play the Thai National team. No this is not about religion but it is about soccer and the Thais take their soccer as seriously as a religion. If this were a biblical story the irony would be Manchester United are known as the Red Devils.

When the match was announced many foreigners from England who are die hard Premiere League fans said Man U would not bring all of their squad because it wouldn't be much of a match. The answer to those opinions is WRONG & WRONG AGAIN.

This was a David vs. Goliath match up. Though the lord didn't show up, all of the Devils did. It was a match of the millionaire behemoths verses a combined group of part time players. Some Thai players have day jobs, others are in college students and seven of the team are very low paid pros.

Man U's millionaire super stars! You want millionaire super stars? Try this out…David Beckham, Fabien Barthez, Ryan Giggs, Ruud Van Nistelrooy, and Juan Sebastian Veron. Veron and Nistelrooy recently signed on to the club for a reported £ 28.1 million and £ 19 million respectively. Within hours after tickets were put on sale the game sold out and this was prior to the signings of Veron and Nistelrooy.

The remainder of the Man U squad included Dwight Yorke, Nicky Butt, Paul Scholes, Roy Keane, Andy Cole, Quinton Fortune, Raimond Van der Gouw, Dennis Irwin, Phillip Neville, Ole Gunner Solskjaer, Gary Neville, Ronny Johnson, Wes Brown, Mikael Silvestre and Luke Chadwick. Man U was ready. They came with everything and everybody but the kitchen sink and Beckham's famous wife Posh Spice. It was awesome.

Without a proper practice and NO rest the Thais played the Devils tough holding them scoreless until the 28th minute when Giggs smashed in a goal from the left side on the box. The Thais were quick to retaliate. At the 32nd minute Tawan Sripan, with some nifty footwork in traffic, smashed in a goal from the top of the box that scorched its way past the diving goalie Fabien Barthez. Tthe Red Devils controlled the ball much of the time from that point on until Yorke's decider in the 78th minute that helped earn him the MVP of the Match Award. .

The packed house of 60,000 fans at Rajamangala Stadium weren't disappointed as the superstar loaded Man U sides 2-1 victory over their hard fighting gritty little Thai squad.

Prior to the game one would think that such a contest would result in an overwhelming victory for Man U. Seven of the Thai starting players were playing in the Singapore S-League hours before the match.

Sweeper Choketawee Promrut arrived the day of the contest. He entered the match at the 60th minute. Other Thai players were playing in a semi pro league in Bangkok the day before the match.

Prior to the competition Thai coach Peter Withe said of his team, "There's going to be a few heavy legs out there." He also noted that eight of his players played five games in nine days.

To put it bluntly the Thais had no time to practice to get their $#!t together while the Man U squad was together (as they have been for years) and had two tune-up matches during the week.

In tune-up games the Devils smashed Singapore 8-1 and thrashed Malaysia 6-0 while on their three game Asian nation tour. They were a fine tuned, well-oiled machine.

Man U coach Sir Alex Ferguson was using the Asian matches to work in their new players Nestelrooy and Veron and also prepare for the upcoming Premier League season.

The Thais played on guts, heart and spirit proved to be a worthy opponent and not a roll in the hay for the monsters of from England.

Coach Sir Alex Ferguson said of the Thai team, "The speed they had up front was always a threat to us. It could have been a difficult game for us tonight. We could have easily lost more than one goal. Thailand can be very proud of their team today, they did very well."

For Ferguson and his squad the match proved to be a good workout, probably more than they expected. It's all business in a few days when they Premier League begins and the Devils face Liverpool in their opening match.

The paradox here is… Man U will stay intact in preparation of going for their fifth straight Premier League title [ninth in eleven years].

Seven of the Thais will return to Singapore to play in the S- League. That forced the Thais to train in Singapore in hopes that the S-League clubs will permit their Thai signed players to train with the Thai National team while the S-League continues its season.

Coach Peter Withe will have to prepare them on what little time he will have with his full squad for the next leg of their World Cup Qualifiers.

Thailand, ranked 5th in Asia, are bracketed with (including their top 10 ranking in Asia) Saudi Arabia (#1), Iran (#4), Iraq (#10) and Bahrain. It s a case of the good…the bad… and the ugly.

The good is… that the part time Thai squad can be so organized with such little time to compete so well against superstar millionaire packed teams and also get through two World Cup qualifying rounds.

The bad is… Thai fans expect them to win without understanding the reality of their situation but losing to Man U is not so bad.

The ugly is…there is talk of Thailand not resigning coach Withe who was runner-up to Japans Philippe Troussier as AFC Coach of the Year 2000.

Withe has made a silk purse out of a sow's ear in his almost three years at the helm. He has turned losers into winners and champions and he isn't appreciated for his contributions and efforts. More… on that later.

BITS

The friendly match came to fruition as a result of big business, big money and the Thais enthusiasm for the superstar packed Manchester United team.

One of Thailand's Prime Minister Thaskin Shinawatra companies AIS, a cell telephone service, was the major sponsor in association with Siemens mobile phones. The match was billed as Siemens GSM Manchester United Invitation.

The sponsors allotted a large portion of tickets for themselves [some figures were put at 46,000], their clients and promotional purposes. The remaining 14,000 were made available to the fans.

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Thailand's Tawan Sripan also won the Man of the Match Award as a result of his kicking the host teams only goal. That goal earned the Thai team 320,000 baht ($7,100) in bonus money. When you think about it some Man U players earn that much for a minutes worth of work.

The goal bonus came together in steps. One of the games sponsors, Samart Corporation put up 100,000 baht per Thai goal prior to the match.

Thailand's The Nation newspaper reported that Orathai Thanajaro, a Thaskin Shinawatra Thai Rak Thai party member, wanted to associate her name to the game and added 200,000 baht per goal to the bonus kitty during the match.

Team officials also offered 20,000 baht per goal. Forty-five baht equates to one US dollar.

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A sea of red clad Thai fans wearing Man U attire and waiving Thai fans cheered the Devils as loudly or more so than their own squad. Due to their success Man U is the flavor of the month as you might say for the Thais who are admittedly front-runners.