Thailand tune-up
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Thailand will gear up for next month's Fifa Futsal World Cup with the friendly All Stars Futsal Festival tournament, which kicks off this Sunday at Bangkok's Thai-Japan Youth Centre.
The Thai side will face Egypt in the opener of the Festival, which also features Panama, Solomon Islands and Australia, all of whom will compete in the Cup from November 1 and 18.
The Festival features Thailand v Australia on October 22, Egypt v Australia on October 23 and Thailand v Solomon Islands on October 24. The event will conclude with a double-header on October 25 – Australia v Solomon Islands and Thailand v Panama.
The Festival will also host “Culture Road” – a series of cultural performance by artists plus booths selling food from the five participating countries.
Deputy Bangkok governor Thaya Tipasuwan said a representative of Fifa would inspect the Bangkok Futsal Arena, one of the Cup venues which is still under construction, at the end of the month.
Thaya added that her office would prepare 40 buses per day for transport of fans to the venues, running from Lat Krabang Airport Link station, Fashion Island and The Mall Bang Krapi.
As hosts, Thailand have qualified automatically for the Cup. It will be their fourth appearance in the finals. The Thais, who never survived the group stage in their previous three appearances, are in Group A along with Costa Rica, Ukraine and Paraguay.
The hosts, who finished runners-up in the Asian Championship earlier this year, will begin their campaign against Costa Rica on November 1 after Ukraine v Paraguay match.
