Our World Cup dream mustn’t be left to die

Thailand’s World Cup hopes were all but ended this week after a brave performance proved not enough to secure points against the United Arab Emirates. The 3-1 defeat left the Thai national team at the bottom of the Asian qualifying in Group B after three games. With the six-team group also including Saudi Arabia, Japan and Australia, to say that Thailand have a steep mountain to climb would be an understatement.

If results are all that matter, as most sports pundits will say, Thailand’s latest failure to achieve a historic first berth in the World Cup finals can be classified as a lack of progress after all the hype. Yet in football, results can flatter the winning teams and be cruel to the losers. And that is what largely happened to Thailand after three matches.

We can be proud of our footballers. They lost to Saudi Arabia due to a highly dubious penalty handed to the hosts late in the game. The Thais also played valiantly against UAE, whose first goal was controversially allowed by the referee and whose last goal was scored in a last-minute counter-attack when Thailand were committing basically everyone forward. Only the 0-2 defeat by Japan in Bangkok a few weeks ago demonstrated a noticeable gap in class.

It’s a glass-half-full-half-empty kind of situation. That Thailand made Saudi Arabia and UAE sweat on their own turf is a big positive. That Thai players’ passing of the ball against the big opponents was slick and a joy to watch shows great promise. That we lost comprehensively on our own turf to a Japanese side in decline is, however, not something to be proud of.

It’s now clear what we have accomplished and also what still needs to be done. The technique is improving significantly and so is the fighting spirit. Where stamina is concerned, however, Thai footballers still come up short and, as they say, technique is no use when stamina is lacking. And if Japan, Thailand’s sidekicks in the game decades ago, can do it, there is no reason why we can’t.

Now, the challenge is how to prevent the disappointment from overshadowing and disrupting the progress we have made. In the early 2000s the “War Elephants” were similarly poised to make the grade, but when everything went downhill, local football development bore the brunt of collective resignation and everyone suffered. Thailand need to move on, but this time there are positive factors that did not exist in the 2000s.

The Thai Premier League, which is getting increasingly popular, is a key difference between now and then. It’s attracting good foreign players and providing inspiration for young local talent, thus helping upgrade local football significantly. Japan, as we all know, turned into a continental football superpower thanks to its strong domestic league.

The Thai national team have cemented their Southeast Asian supremacy with one key victory after another, and the goal is no longer beating Vietnam or Indonesia or Singapore. This should allow all concerned to unite with a new focus and ambition.

A nation renowned as football crazy has suffered disappointment yet again when it comes to securing a long-awaited World Cup final birth. But the passionate soccer following is being fuelled by something more powerful than ever before. Locating local talent has been more effective and so has their development. Russia, the place where the next World Cup finals will be staged in 2018, is most likely not the destination for us now, but rebuilding the hope must start immediately.