Sports Notes - Thailand Team Rich & Striker Poor vs Everton, Bolton & Real Madrid - August 2005

James Loving NR Bolton midfielder Kevin Nolan and manager Sam Allardyce

James Loving - National Radio Text Service - Wednesday August 17, 2005

Thailand Impressive against Premiere Club Sides and Real Madrid - Thailand Fans Reaction & Opinions - Real Madrid Coach Luxemburgo Dismisses Press - Indonesian Coach Peter Withe Scouts Thailand - ESPN's Scott O'Donnell Cambodia's New Coach - PRE SEA GAMES IN BANGKOK &- Pre Sea Games Groups

THAILAND'S UNDER 23 SQUAD PLAYED THE ROLE OF DAVID AGAINST THEIR GOLIATH COMPETITION

The Thailand under 23 team played the role of David in their friendly match-ups against English Premiere sides Everton and Bolton as well as world top class side Real Madrid last month in Bangkok, Thailand.

The undersized Thais utilized their speed and quickness to overcome their size disadvantage in upsetting Everton in a penalty shoot-out match 1-1 after regulation and a 5-3 shoot-out.

The Thais bolted into the lead when Phichipong Choeichiu lashed a ball into the net in the 14th minute catching the Everton side by surprise before an estimated crowd of 20,000 at Bangkok's Rajamangala stadium. They held the lead for 30 minutes when the Toffees drew level in the 44th minute.

At the same venue against Bolton three days later July 23, the Thai's continued to scrap away against their much bigger opponents before conceding a penalty goal by Senegal national team star El-Hadji Diouf in the 78th minute for a 1-0 result. That earned the Wanderer's the F.A. Premiere League Asia Trophy as another estimated crowd of 25,000 looked on.

The Thai's energetic effort prompted Everton coach David Moyes and Bolton manager Sam Allardyce to compliment their performance noting that the Thais were sharp and well prepared.

The praise is well earned since current Thai coach Chanvit Plachiva has been in charge of the squad for only two months in preparation for these games. The under 23's squad has only four players with national team caps.

When Real Madrid came to town the following week for their July 29 match over 50,000 fans turned out to see the world-class team pulverize the Thais 3-0.

In a graceful performance, Zinedine Zidane and Ronaldo led the way, as they appeared to be playing at half speed. Zidane was particularly impressive with his fluid moves on attack and skillful passing.

The sides excellent unselfish play resulted in a team rich appraisal from fans and officials alike while scoring only one goal in 270 minutes of competition proved the squad to be striker poor.

The squad showed guts, heart and a never quit attitude as they snipped away at the heels of their competition. This team is the most spirited, organized and more focused since Peter Withe was dismissed is September 2003.

Since that time coach Chanvit is the team's fifth coach including Withe in an 18-month period. Overall, Chanvit said he was pleased with his team's performance.

In what could be considered an understatement Thailand manager Thavatchai Sajakul said the coach did OK since he was in charge of the squad for only a short period of time.

Thai fans Somkiet Tunkaew, 33 and Sasitorn Termpan, 27 saw all three games. They watched the Everton and Bolton games on television and attended the Real Madrid match.

After the Real game they said they felt the Thais performance against Real Madrid was their best of the three matches. They shared their thoughts about this team verses previous Thai squads.

"Last years team was not as good," said Tunkaew. "This team is better. They pass the ball good into the area. The (current) strikers are not as good (as Withe's teams).

"I like Kiatisuk 'Zico' Senamuang (from Withe's teams). These strikers are younger."

"Today they played better but could not score. They had good ideas to attack but could not finish and they couldn't stop the Real Madrid strikers."

Sajakul also felt the Thais were more impressive in their 3-0 loss to Real Madrid given the quality of the side

Real has/had (Figo moved on) five potential all-time great players in Zidane, Ronaldo, Roberto Carlos, Luis Figo and David Beckham

WANDERLY WANDERS

After the Real Madrid match at 8:00 pm the scheduled post game press conference was canceled. Reason given was Real had to go straight to the airport to catch a 10:30 flight.

This enabled Real coach Wanderly (now Vanderlei) Luxemburgo to avoid having to answer questions. Siam Sports, the largest sports publication in Thailand and one of the organizers of the game in Thailand sent a reporter to Japan when Real played Japanese club to find out how he felt about coming to play the Thai side.

The reporter waited until after the post game press conference in Japan to ask the question. Luxemburgo dismissed him saying he should have asked the question in the press conference.

What Luxemburgo fails to respect or recognize is that according to journalist etiquette is that in a post game press conference reporters that don't have game questions should wait so they don't interfere with beat reports that are on deadline to get their stories completed and filed with their publications.

In being polite those of us that have unrelated post game questions wait until the end of the press conference and then ask. It is up to the person being questioned to choose to answer or not.

When Luxemburgo was in charge of Brazil's national side during a previous visit to Thailand he refused to answer ONE QUESTION IN ENGLISH for an Associated Press (AP) reporter. In doing so he spent twice as much time SPEAKING IN ENGLISH of why he felt it wasn't necessary to answer a question in English than it would have taken to do so.

Luxemburgo may be a talented coach but he has a long way to go in the respect of others and their job. He may think he is bigger in stature than Michael Jordan but Jordan was respectful of reporters trying to do their job. Suffice to say…. Why can't we all just get along?

DID YOU KNOW?

When a Peter Withe coached Thailand squad played Manchester Untied with David Beckham in July 2001 they were ranked in the high 50's internationally and fifth in Asia. The Thai's wanted to improve on that when they explained their dismissal of Withe in September 2003. Withe then took charge of the Indonesian national team.

In the FIFA rankings released July 20th Thailand was world ranked 96th and Indonesia 92. The Thais are ranked 16th in Asia and Indonesia 15th.

Withe was in attendance at all three games scouting the Thai side for the upcoming pre-SEA GAMES to be held in Bangkok August 29 - September 11th.

The semifinals take place September 7th and the finals September 9th at Supachalasai/National Stadium.

ESPN's SCOTT O'DONELL TO CAMBODIA

ESPN sports analyst and former Gayling (Singapore) coach Scott O'Donnell has signed on to coach Cambodia's national squad. O'Donnell has been working with the side for the past month in preparation for the pre-SEA Games in Bangkok. O'Donnell's first pre-SEA Games contest August 30th when Cambodia takes on Brunei.

PRE-SEA GAMES GROUPS

Group A: Philippines, Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia and Timor Leste.

Group B: Indonesia, Singapore, Brunei, Cambodia and Laos.