As a football-loving nation, qualifying for the World Cup has been the ultimate dream for Thailand.
While the Thai women's national football team and the men's Paralympics team both managed to qualify for their respective most recent World Cup tournaments, the Thai men's football squad has yet to realise this golden moment despite the rich talent of players like midfielder Chanathip Songkrasin and forward Teerasil Dangda.
In fact, the Football Association of Thailand (FAT) has through the decades hired the services of some highly qualified trainers from abroad but unfortunately to no avail.
As a former sports reporter, I have spoken to a diverse number of players, coaches and top football management on this matter. In a nutshell, they attribute the absence of success, amongst other things, to the rather small stature of the players, their lack of motivation and poor coaching.
While I felt that all of this made sense, there was still more than meets the eye, that there were more pressing issues that were not being addressed.
It was while interviewing a handful of foreign coaches in the Thai Premier League for a feature on the 2018 World Cup that I had a rather interesting conversation with German-born Dennis Amato of Chainat Hornbill FC. Amato, in my opinion, hit the nail on the head when it comes to better understanding just where Thai football stands today and its chances of ever making it to the World Cup.
He began by noting that what we had going for us was that Thais of all walks of life are passionate about their football, despite it being at a developing stage. In his two years in Thailand, he found there was immense talent among young players.
What was impeding progress, however, was internal politics and interference by people who had no sports knowledge, such as sponsors and individuals with vested interests.
He added that in sports, when there doesn't seem to be any marked progress, it is often because of the way the club or team is managed rather than because the players and coaches are not talented or competent enough.
"Above everything else, this type of interference has to stop, and be replaced with people who have a good knowledge of the sport, who can then run the team. Otherwise chances are bleak that Thai football players make any type of progress, which would help them to get to the next stage of their football.''
Moreover, coaches, he remarked, should be given a more active role in developing the team. When you improve your club, you automatically improve your players and then your national team.
Once that's taken care of, developing the football clubs should take priority over the national team, the German suggested. This, he said, was needed, because, aside from a handful of Thai players who are playing in Japan and Belgium, almost the entire national team plays in the Thai Premier League. So, to make progress, one had to make the Thai league more competitive, with a long way to go to reach the quality found in the J League (Japan) and K League (Korea).
The German football trainer predicts it could take 10-20 years for the Thai national team to qualify for the World Cup if his aforementioned suggestions are seriously implemented.
Pivotal to the success of the players, he noted, was a coach with better-than-average knowledge of the game. Recruitment for future players should begin as early as six or seven, so by the time players reach their early 20s, they would likely feature a well-rounded skill set as well as the confidence needed to qualify for the World Cup tournament.
He described the junior football players he has come across so far as being exceptionally talented, so much so, that they could easily be as competitive as players at Germany's youth football academy.
Another area in need of development is the coaching. A lack of good football coaches had impeded the progress of the players, he continued, so what Thailand needed to do was also better train their training staff, so they could then impart this information to their players time and time again.
Summing up his point, Amato concluded: "Thai football players lack team performance and tactical behaviour [related to the state of ball possession]. This is not the mistake of the players but rather due to poor coaching. The bottom line is that to make any progress, we all have to be on the same page, management, coaches and players. It is no use hiring the services of a top coach while everyone is not on the same page on pressing issues that will determine the future of football in Thailand; in this case qualifying for the World Cup."
Yvonne Bohwongprasert is a feature writer with Life section.