A Weekend Watching The TPL
by Wim Peeters
11/7/16
Over the course of one weekend I watched Chonburi against Chainat (7-2), Bangkok Glass against Nakhon Ratchasima (2-1), and Bangkok United against MTUFC (3-3). Bangkok and MTUFC were much better teams than the others, with balance and some good combinations played and individual players. Bangkok Utd, in my opinion, is superior to MTUFC. They will get better. You can see they have some things missing as a team, maybe do not have good distance between players when they have possession and maybe a very tough holding midfield player who would have hit that little player (Chanatip) who scored MTUFC’s second goal, very hard before he even started, but they are organized in a better way and try to play nice football. But two mistakes in defence cost them two goals. It can happen. They are more powerful and committed. Sometime I see they need team discipline by some players but they can learn how to do that.
Bangkok Glass against Nakhon Ratchasima was a good match to watch, with many things happening. It was interesting to compare Bangkok Glass, who had a good approach to goal but were not so good at finishing, and Nakhon Ratchasima, who were quite good at finishing but did not play well in the build up. Bangkok Glass seem to have better coaching through their build up play and so were the best team of these two, even though the game was close. Bangkok Glass could have scored many more. Both need to play less frantically and have a little more patience and control of the ball. When you have control of the ball as a team then you have control of the opponent.
And so to the Chonburi match. I will not talk about Chainat so much. They are a very weak team. I think some players did not try and, because they had no shape and lack of formation, they had no defensive capability. I think they had some players who could be better but the coach is not so good. That is very clear to see in the disorganization of the players on the field. With Chonburi I think they were the better team, but still have a lack of individual and team discipline. They attack through wide positions ok, but then do not use these opportunities to make chances. That sounds silly, as you have just scored seven doesn’t it? But the attack can stop because support players are in bad positions or delivery to the attackers is not so good.
In defence they do not look so strong. The second goal for Chanat was an example, as four players were near the player who crossed the ball. This meant there were other players free. It just takes one to tackle and one, maybe the libero, to cut off the way to goal. I did not like the keeper very much, as he did not do the things I would want from him, but he was much better than the other team’s keeper.
We have an expression, "you can teach everyone to play but you cannot teach everyone to defend". It is in the mind. Some can do it, some cannot. I think some of Chonburi defence cannot defend very well. If it were me, I would set up the team in a very different way from what I saw on Saturday.
There seems to be an important thing missing from football in Thailand, but maybe not so much with Bangkok United. For the last 7 or 8 seasons we have worked with players on a system we call -defensively-attacking/attackingly- defensive. This does not mean we are defensive by nature. It means we build a strong defence and our attacks begin there, with every player easy on the ball. Then we attack as a unit, keeping our shape, but all helping. Remember you haven’t got to have the ball to have influence as a player. Intelligent movement can be a big thing in creating space for others. It is a team game.
Then, when we defend, we do it as a unit, with defence starting way up the field with our front 3 and midfield players. We have training drills which have as the target to get the possession from your opponent before they go over the half way line, with them starting from their goalkeeper. No long balls, the opponent has to run over the half way with the ball with a minimum of 10 passes. That way we teach our players to press high up the pitch and gain possession before a threat comes. It also means we are better placed to launch a counter.
With this system RSC Anderlecht became European Champions at under-17, beating Ajax Amsterdam in the final. This will be no good here because you do need very good technical skills, but these ideas are for the future. It will be good for the players and for the team.
Something else I want to say is, that the standard of football is not as good as it was when I was here a year ago - except for the Bangkok Utd v MTUFC match. This would be a worry to me, as it shows that the country is falling behind where it was a year ago and teams are not so good, Also the matches I watched then had big crowds with many people. Now it seems not so many. Bangkok Utd against MTUFC, second place playing at home to first place in the table. Should not the stadium be full I ask you? Such a big game. Chonburi also did not have so many. Maybe football in Thailand has problems and not in good health. It looks so.
There were 11,000 at that Bangkok Utd v MTUFC match tonight and many of them were away fans. So let me guess that maybe 5,000 home fans. That is not enough for second in the table. I would be disappointed with that as a coach and as a chairman. It is not so hard to sell a football club to its people, especially when they play well. We have seen this working together in Holland and Belgium. I talked about this with friends after the match and we talked about a Twitter message where someone said that Bangkok Utd have no history and they play in other team’s areas. This is common everywhere.
In Brussels we have teams with good support, In London many teams with full stadiums, In Rotterdam 3 teams within 5kms with good and loyal support. Bangkok is a big city. There is room for everyone. And history they can start to make now. This is their time to start to make the history that will carry them forward. And I do not refer to becoming just champions of Thailand. When you have success, even being second in the table, you must use that. If they do not take this moment they will be sad in the future.
I have been told that Chonburi also did not take their moment in the past. You can see the result in how many come to the match now. I think that what I see in Thailand is fans who love football, some players try very hard, some teams are much better than others, which is normal, and some teams with bad coaching, but I do not see that they believe what they can achieve if they want to. If Bangkok United for example, want to move forward, then they have to do this and I hope next year I’ll come back and they are Thailand champions with 15-20,000 people coming to their matches. Maybe Chonburi at the top as well. With a full stadium!
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