The opposite of xenophobia when Man U comes to town

You can’t really blame them for failing to understand why most of the crowd at Rajamangala Stadium was booing the home squad, no matter how popular the English Premier League champions are here.

Much of the home-side jeering was directed at Teeratep “Leesaw” Winothai, who scored the sole goal in the 1-0 Thai victory (bad day for Man U, and a shoddy line-up). They booed the Bangkok Glass United player and captain-of-the-day every time he touched the ball. They booed even louder when he scored and gave the fans a wai. 

The problem is that Leesaw, despite his talent, is widely regarded as being too full of himself. And it didn’t help that he’d said in an interview that, if he scored against Manchester, he wouldn’t celebrate. Man U’s devotees found the remark disingenuous coming from an “outsider”, leaving Leesaw to explain afterward that he’s been a Man U supporter all his life. 

But he refused to blame the fans, and he didn’t feel bad about defeating the mighty Man U. “I didn’t kill anyone!” he said.

Somebody’s hero

Well, let’s see what the social media have to say about that. Amid many complaints about Leesaw’s boastfulness and other disliked traits, the man has his backers, who noted that plenty of foreign players have worse personalities but are never treated so harshly at home games. 

“His exaggerated personality might displease the fans, but that doesn’t mean they should boo him throughout the game,” sports columnist and TV host Bouranij “Bor Boo” Rattanawichien wrote on Facebook. If any Thais deserved boos, he said, it was the organisers. 

“The Man United players weren’t even announced at the start, nor the substitutions during the match. No one had any idea who was in or out!” Then, after the match, the Man U players stepped forward first to receive their runner-up medals in a shower of confetti and other dazzling special effects. When the Thai side was handed its trophy – nothing!