I guess that's a problem a lot of developing football nations share. If only Thailand could get Worawi to be the adviser to the FAT president rather than the actual one.
Chonburi is through to the third play-off round as well. 3-0 over South China. But they have an even tougher match-up than Muangthong in the next round in Beijing against Beijing Guoan. Honestly, Chonburi's chances are very slim. Beijing is very tough to beat at home, has some interesting new signees that should make them even stronger than last season (last 16 in ACL), and the weather will be freezing and dry. Chonburi is good at arranging interesting friendlies to prep their squad for big games, but I have no idea how they will prepare for this one. I will be at this game, I'm buying my ticket now!
Beijing hammered Chonburi 4-0. I admit I was cheering for my local side, but I was disappointed Chonburi couldn't at least make it look respectable. I didn't see the Muangthong game, but it looks like they had an early lead before giving it away in Australia. Buriram is the only Thai side in the ACL group stage this year. Maybe it's for the best. Chonburi isn't at that level yet, and Muangthong would've been in a group of death again.
TPL 2014 starts this weekend! Buriram vs Songkhla Air Force vs TOT Singtharua vs PTT Rayong Chiang Rai vs Bangkok Glass Army vs Bangkok United Muangthong vs Chainat Samut Songkhram vs BEC Tero Suphanburi vs Ratchaburi Sisaket vs Osotspa Saraburi Chonburi vs Police Then on Tuesday, Buriram will play their first ACL 2014 group stage match in Jinan, Shandong, China against Shandong Luneng. In my opinion, this is Buriram's toughest group stage match. Shandong is a very good team and is expected to pressure Guangzhou Evergrande for the CSL title this year. They are also a favorite to go deep in the ACL 2014. Like Chonburi's game in Beijing last Saturday, the weather will be very cold with possibly heavy air pollution. Buriram players will have to adapt.
Opening weekend scores: TPL Buriram 3-0 Songkhla Air Force 0-0 TOT Singtharua 1-1 PTT Rayong Chiang Rai 0-2 Bangkok Glass Army 2-1 Bangkok United Muangthong 2-1 Chainat Samut Songkhram 0-0 BEC Tero Suphanburi 1-2 Ratchaburi* Sisaket 0-1 Osotspa Saraburi Chonburi 4-0 Police D1 Ayutthaya 1-1 Ang Thong Trat 0-1 Chiang Mai* Navy 1-1 BBCU Pitsanulok 2-2 Khon Kaen Roi Et 1-2 TTM Customs Nakhon Pathom 2-0 Krabi Saraburi 3-1 Sriracha Phuket 1-0 Pattaya Nakhon Ratchasima 1-0 Bangkok FC *Surprise results
I heard that Buriram United is not going to release Philippine national team player Javier Patino for the AFC Challenge Cup in May. Can you confirm this? The AFC Challenge Cup is essentially an Asian Cup qualifying tournament. Shouldn't they take that into consideration?
Well the Thai leagues are notoriously stingy at releasing players, including Thai players, for national team duty. Patino, being our no. 2 starting forward, would be a big loss for the Philippines, in their drive to win the Challenge Cup and qualify for the Asian Cup. Nevertheless I would like to wish good luck to Patino and Buriram United, in their AFC Champion's league campaign.
Maybe that's true. A lot of Thais have grown rather apathetic towards national team performance. Club performance is more important for most of us. Anyway, good luck to Philippines NT and the other ASEAN members in the Challenge Cup.
Buriram salvages a draw in Jinan! 1-1 was the final score after Adisak's equalizer in stoppage time. Good result. Next they need to pick up a victory, hopefully in their ACL next match in two weeks, against Pohang Steelers in Buriram.
That would be tough. Wouldn't be so bad getting a draw with them but a win would really at the early stage put them in a good position. Couple of wins at home and draws away should do them if they can do it.
Yes it will be tough. Despite last year having an ACL finalist in it, I think this year's group is tougher to escape because it is deeper. Last year, Buriram's group had Jiangsu Sainty and Vegalta Sendai, which were both sort of sub-par teams in the ACL. But top to bottom this year's group looks dangerous.
Buriram disappointingly lost at home 1-2 to Pohang Steelers tonight. Other league scores from the weekend: TPL PTT Rayong 2-2 Chiang Rai TOT 0-3 Muangthong Buriram 0-0 Ratchaburi Songkhla 1-1 Chonburi Bangkok United 1-2 Sisaket Osotspa Saraburi 0-1 Thai Port Chainat 2-0 Army BEC Tero 4-2 Suphanburi Bangkok Glass 1-0 Samut Songkhram Police 5-1 Air Force D1 Pattaya Utd 0-3 Ayutthaya Ang Thong 2-1 Phuket Krabi 1-2 Saraburi Khon Kaen 0-1 Nakhon Ratchasima Chiang Mai 1-1 Nakhon Pathom TTM Customs 1-0 Navy Bangkok FC 1-1 Phitsanulok BBCU 3-1 Trat Sriracha 2-3 Roi Et
Buriram is not playing well at all right now. They lost 3-2 to BEC Tero over the weekend. It's the first time they've lost a TPL match since 2012. Then they went on to get stomped by Cerezo Osaka in Japan 4-0. On the other hand, this means the TPL is surprisingly wide open right now. We're 3 weeks in, and no team has taken full points from all 3 matches. No team has dropped all 3 matches either. A team to watch right now is Ratchaburi. Their new Spanish coach has seem them take points as underdogs in all three of their opening games over a very tough road schedule. They took 3 points at Suphanburi, then earned a draw at Buriram, and should have won at Chonburi this weekend, but gave up two late goals and so settled for a draw. Next they get a brief reprieve in a home opener against Air Force, before they head to Muangthong mid-week.
Interesting scores from this weekend: Bangkok Glass 3-0 Buriram United. Buriram's descent quickens. BG might have stated that we'll indeed have an interesting title race this year. D1: TTM Customs 2-0 Ang Thong. Both were on top of the table before the invisible Bangkok-based side disposed of Ang Thong. D2: Thai Honda 11-1 Rayong United. What kind of team loses 11-1?? And one that played in D1 last year, even.
TPL Standings through 6 matches: #Team GD P 1Ratchaburi +7 14 2Singhtarua +6 14 3Bangkok Glass +5 12 4Muang Thong United +7 11 5Chonburi +5 10 6BEC Tero Sasana +3 10 7Army United -1 10 8TOT +1 9 9Suphanburi +0 9 10Chiangrai United +2 8 11Buriram United +1 8 12Osotspa +0 8 13Sisaket -2 7 14Chainat Hornbill +0 6 15PTT Rayong -2 6 16Bangkok United -3 5 17Songkhla United -7 5 18Police United -4 4 19Air Force Central -8 3 20Samut Songkhram -10 1 Ratchaburi continued their shocking pace with a road victory over Muangthong, followed by an easy home win over Army. They are somehow top of the table through six matches. Meanwhile, Chiang Rai helped themselves out with 4 points against Suphanburi and Buriram.
what happen acually to buriram utd? were ratchaburi & singhtarua the new mighty club based on money or what?
Buriram is kind of a mystery right now. It seems they miss Osmar on the back line, he went to FC Seoul. I think it's only a matter of time before they find their form. Odd that it's taking so long. Ratchaburi and Singhtarua certainly should not be at the top based on their budgets. Ratchaburi's new coach from Spain seems to be a diamond in the rough who is making miracles happen immediately. They also have some new foreigners who are making a big impact quickly. It will be interesting to see if Ratchaburi has staying power. Singhtarua has had an easy start to the season as their opening six games have all been against likely bottom half of the table teams. I expect they'll have a harder time against the bigger TPL clubs soon enough. They host Suphanburi on Saturday, that will be an interesting test for them.
Buriram got their first win of the 2014 ACL tonight 1-0 over Shandong Luneng. But unless Buriram can win again in Pohang, Korea and get help from the other fixture in the group, it will be too little too late. Buriram is tied for 2nd in the group with 5 points, but because of GD tiebreakers, Buriram needs to win in Korea and hope Shandong defeats or ties Cerezo Osaka to advance.
Haha. I don't really have a team actually. I just generally support the whole league's growth and transformation and I like going to a lot of different teams' home games. But my favorites are probably Bangkok United, Muangthong, and Buriram.
How come your a MTU fan? What's your connection? I'm a Krabi fan by the way and like Mr Thai I generally support the whole scene.
So how about Nonthaburi themselves? Odd how you support a local team that was formed in BKK over an actual local team?
Pakkret, really. Just off Chaengwattana, if you know that from the immigration office. Which brings me to this very old post... I'm sorry, but I don't quite get the significance you are giving to the word 'Bangkok'. Surely that word alone isn't going to persuade anyone in, say, Lak Si to support a Bang Mod team over a Muang Thong one. Representation isn't solely down to what the team's name is, otherwise Everton would be pretty buggered with their district of under 8,000 people and Chelsea, Tottenham and company would all be lining up outside an office somewhere with a load of 'London United' copywrite application forms. Indeed, I don't actually live in Muang Thong Thani myself. I have to agree with Drury. Metro expansions or not, Bangkok is far, far too significant a city to Thai league football and far, far too vast a city in size to ever unify the whole lot behind a few superclubs. It's relatively easy for everyone to get behind a Buriram, but here you'll always have a MTU/Glass/TOT chipping away at support in the north, a Port in Klong Toei, etc. There's just too much competition. Really, I'd much prefer to see them go in the opposite direction and have teams named Lak Si, Don Muang, Lat Phrao, Chatuchak, Bang Sue and the like appear. Try to represent the places that strike me as actually having a community feel to them. Then, like the London clubs, the fanbase will expand organically if success on the pitch follows. Because really, I don't think anyone here up in the north of the metro area give too much of a crap about teams on the other side of town regardless of what they're called. But that's just me. Yikes, that turned into a bit of a rant.