Muangthong United
The whole of the football world knows that regularly sacking your head coach isn’t a good idea. Evidence abounds that this short-sighted practice rarely has a positive effect and yet impatient chairmen and presidents do it again and again. Muangthong sacked their coach before a competitive game had been played in 2011; they then sacked another after exiting the Champions League at the qualifying stage – still before the league season had started. So René Desaeyere and Carlos Carvalho may have been forgiven a smirk when Muangthong were thumped at Army United and Osotspa-Saraburi early on in the 2011 campaign. Henrique Calisto has managed to guide the champions through those early traumas though, and the Twin Qilins have steadily climbed the table and are now comfortably awaiting the quarter-finals of the AFC Cup. A fifth league title in five years can pretty much be ruled out thanks to Buriram’s dominance, but if they can become the first Thai club to bring a continental trophy back to Thailand this century, and maybe add a domestic cup, then Calsito’s job might, justmight be safe!
Thai Port
Enough has been said already about Thai Port’s off-the-pitch problems (http://bk.asia-city.com/health/blog/thai-premier-league/port-facing-prob...). But on the pitch things have been going well for the Port Lions as a good run of results in the run up to the mid-season break have propelled Port into sixth place. Unfortunately, the departure of coach Sasom Pobpraserd and four top players threatens to derail Port’s season just as they were once again looking like a force to be reckoned with. Coach Sasom exclusively revealed to us (http://bk.asia-city.com/health/blog/thai-premier-league/buriram-fc-coach...) that his departure was a sacrificial act to help Thai Port solve their large debts, and we believe that the four players were offloaded for similar reasons.
The club did move swiftly to install a new coach in the form of Thongchai Sukkokee and the club also announced that no more of their big name players will be leaving for the foreseeable future. So with Sasom and a clutch of players gone, and a new coach in place, it’s difficult to predict what the future holds. All we can do is wish the new coach a lot of luck. At a club like Thai Port he’s going to need it.
Bangkok Glass
The Glass Rabbits gradually found consistency as the first half of the season wore on and now find themselves in third place, just one point behind second place Chonburi. Recent notable successes included a 5-3 win over Police United and a 2-0 win over Chonburi. Both those fine victories came at home though, and BG can often look like a different side away from the Leo stadium: see the woeful defeats at TOT, Sisaket and Pattaya. But if they were to finish above Muangthong then that would clearly signify a shift in the balance of power in Bangkok football. Our hunch though is that BG are in a bit of a false position and will finish somewhere between fourth and sixth. But owing to their ability to beat anyone on their day, a first domestic cup success, added to their Singapore Cup win last year, can’t be ruled out.
Click here for the first part of our mid-season review.