Before the match against Oman in the second round of Group F of the 2023 Asian Cup, the Thai press had high hopes that the home team, with its rising spirit after the victory over Kyrgyzstan (2-0), would continue to win. Thereby, not only would they get a place in the round of 16, but they would also regain the top spot in Southeast Asia from the Vietnamese team and enter the world's top 100 as they have long dreamed.
The Thai team (in white) could only find a draw against Oman.
Coach Masatada Ishii's team aimed for a safe draw, instead of taking an adventurous approach to win as the country's press expected. The developments showed that the Thai team proactively played a tight defense to protect their goal, before looking for opportunities in counter-attacks.
In a very tight match, the Thai team forced the stronger opponent Oman to face many difficulties and had to share points with a 0-0 draw. This result helped the "War Elephants" have 4 points after 2 matches, ranking 2nd in Group F after the Saudi Arabian team (won Kyrgyzstan 2-0) with 6 points and won the ticket to continue. The Thai team is also sure to go to the round of 16 of the 2023 Asian Cup, at least with the position of 1 of the 4 third-place teams with the best results.
Highlight Thailand 2 - 0 Kyrgyzstan | Asian Cup 2023
In the final round on January 25, the Thai team will meet the Saudi Arabian team, while the Oman team (1 point) will meet the Kyrgyzstan team (eliminated). A draw is all it takes for the Thai team to maintain second place in the group and an official ticket to the next round. In case they lose heavily to Saudi Arabia and the Oman team wins big against Kyrgyzstan to take second place, the "War Elephants" will also secure third place. With 4 points in hand, the team of coach Masatada Ishii has too many advantages to win a ticket to be one of the 4 third-place teams with the best results to go on.
In the final round, the Thai team (right) faced a very strong opponent, Saudi Arabia.
The draw against Oman (ranked 74th in the world) helped Thailand gain 3.89 points in the FIFA rankings to now have 1,198.86 points, up 3 places to 102nd in the world.
With this score and position, the Thai team still cannot enter the world top 100 and surpass the Vietnamese team (ranked 99th in the world after 2 losses to Japan 2-4 and Indonesia 0-1). However, they have come very close to the opportunity they have cherished for many years, just in a short time recently with impressive performance at the 2023 Asian Cup.
The Vietnamese team currently has 1,205.90 points after being deducted a total of 29.68 points from the two losses above, only 7.04 points more than the Thai team. This is too short a gap. Therefore, if the results of the competition cannot be improved, sooner or later the Vietnamese team will be dethroned as the number 1 team in Southeast Asia after more than 5 years at the top.
In the upcoming match, coach Philippe Troussier and his team will face a strong opponent, the Iraqi team, at 6:30 p.m. on January 24 in the final round of Group D of the 2023 Asian Cup.
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