Chonburi 0-0 Samut Songkhram - Match Report: 2010

TPL

Chonburi 0-0 Samut Songkhram

IPE Stadium

Sunday 2nd May, 2010

Attendance: 10,097

An instantly forgetable encounter, between a team who tried to play football and a team who didn't, ended in stalemate. I'll leave you to guess which team is which.

Match Report 

I had a feeling that I wasn't going to enjoy this match, and I was right. It's certainly a game that is best forgotten. In my preview I alluded to the fact that Samut Songkhram's "style" of play probably wouldn't be conducive to a thrilling afternoon's entertainment and, unfortunately, they didn't let me down. In all fairness they weren't as bad as they were against Bangkok Glass a couple of weeks ago but, if I had to pay to watch that every week - even at B50 a pop - I'd rather do the gardening and spend my money on a couple of Changs.

They tried it on a couple of times in the first five minutes and at one stage, even this early into proceedings, two of their players were lying down in the Chonburi penalty area awaiting treatment. To his credit, Sinthaweechai completely ignored them and knocked the ball wide to Natthapong. However, the full back wasn't quite on the same wavelength and "sportingly" tapped the ball out of play - much to the annoyance of his own fans.

The rest of the half was pretty lame and only Pipob's close range header against the bar is worth a mention here, unless you want a total of how many times the trainer came on. Yes, I did keep score. The second period was a slight improvement but Chonburi just couldn't get it together. You could see the players becoming increasingly frustrated and there were a couple of niggly little incidents as a result. 

Even the normally reliable midfield was having off day and I lost count of how many times passes went astray or were over hit. We did enjoy the bulk of possession but we didn't really create much. We certainly didn't click like we have done in previous weeks. On a positive note, the opposition's play acting subsided a little after the break (maybe the TV director had a word) but the ref did hand out a few yellow cards for other blatant time wasting tactics.

As the minutes ticked away it became increasingly obvious that we weren't going to score. Even when Arthit's free kick rattled the woodwork I found it hard to get excited. At the final whistle - blown after a laughable 3 minutes of injury time - there was a mixture of disappointment, that we'd failed to win, and relief ,that it was all over. Meanwhile, to my right the visitors celebrated wildly with their impressive following. Enough said.