CHAPTER 1

The tournament that changed my life

Adisak Kraisorn had been fouled in the box and I could see that he wanted to take the penalty. But I told him it was mine. I was the designated penalty taker and it was my duty. Adisak and I were roommates at the time, and he just looked at me and said, You had better score.

December 17, 2014, is a day forever etched in my memory. The ASEAN Football Federation (AFF) Cup may not have the prestige of the FIFA World Cup or the Copa America, but it matters a lot to the 10 Southeast Asian nations who take part. I had been thrust into the spotlight in the first leg of the final as Thailand hosted Malaysia in Bangkok. The second leg would take place in Kuala Lumpur three days later.

The 2014 edition was the 10th time the biannual tournament had taken place and Thailand had history on their side. The War Elephants had won the competition three times to Malaysia’s one. But the Thais had gone through a difficult time leading up to this one and Malaysia had been the more recent victors in 2010.

After a cagey 70 minutes, typical of a tournament final, my big moment arrived.

I had been used to taking penalties since I was a kid and it was not usually something that made me nervous. But this one felt different. Thailand hadn’t won the AFF Cup in 12 years and I was taking a big responsibility for breaking that sequence in front of about 50,000 expectant fans at Bangkok’s Rajamangala Stadium. The weight of a nation was on my shoulders for a very brief moment.

I looked up and saw the clock had gone past the 70-minute mark, so I knew it would be an important goal. As usual, I chose my corner and, fortunately, I hit the ball low to the keeper’s right and found the net. My confidence had been so high throughout the tournament and, again, it felt like almost everything was working out well for me. There was relief as I was very conscious that missing the shot at such an important moment could have been the difference between glory and bitter disappointment.

Kroekrit Thaweekarn then scored a second goal to give us a cushion ahead of the second leg, but with a couple of minutes remaining, I missed the opportunity to effectively bury Malaysia and clinch the trophy.

A lot of people looked in awe at the 27-pass sequence that led to my golden chance. They described it as Thailand playing tiki-taka in the style of Barcelona or Spain, but I was mad at myself for not finishing the move with a goal. I really wish I had scored. The move received plenty of attention and more than a million people have seen it on YouTube. How many more would have watched if I had put the ball into the back of the net?

That move represented exactly the kind of team we were. The buildup to the chance was symbolic of the philosophy of our head coach, Zico (Kiatisuk Senamuang). All the movement both on and off the ball showed exactly how we worked as a team.

But I was so disappointed about missing. The ball came to my right foot but I took a little too long to control and shoot, so a defender closed me down. My shot took a slight deflection off him and it missed by a metre to the goalkeeper’s left.

At 3–0, it would have been really tough for Malaysia but we left ourselves some work to do and, of course, Malaysia made us work really hard to win the trophy in the second leg.

With just under an hour of the second leg gone, our advantage had been wiped out and the Malaysians led 3–2 on aggregate. Missing that chance looked like it may well come back to haunt me.

Perhaps inexperience had played a part in what looked like our downfall. We were maybe not expecting such an intimidating crowd in Kuala Lumpur. Malaysia had played the semi-final in a smaller venue but moved to the Bukit Jalil Stadium for the final to accommodate a larger crowd. The place was packed with over 90,000 passionate home fans. The size of that crowd just hammers home the importance of the tournament to the population of the region. Not many players have the chance to play in front of so many supporters in their careers, and most of us were only in our early twenties.

My impression was that a number of our team were not quite ready for that kind of crowd and atmosphere. We were nervous, especially in the first half. It didn’t help that the referee gifted Malaysia a penalty just six minutes in. It was a shocking decision and if you look back at a recording of the match, my reaction says it

all—utter

disbelief that he could make such a big decision so early in the game for what was, if anything, a foul on the defender.

But we didn’t always help ourselves. Mistakes were made and we went 2–0 down at the end of the first half.

Nevertheless, I could feel that we were gaining in confidence. Although we were disappointed by the half-time score, something special happened during the break.

At first, I was a little bit angry with how the game had been going and I was focusing on myself, but then I noticed a change in the atmosphere. I hadn’t been in Thailand long enough to understand a lot of the conversation around me but I could see that our coach, Zico, had taken a phone call. It was a message from the King of Thailand, wishing the team well and saying he believed in us, and he was pushing us to keep fighting to turn things around.

I looked around and many of my teammates looked emotional. It gave me goosebumps.

However, 12 minutes into the second half, we conceded a third goal. While Safiq Rahim’s first goal had been a very lucky penalty, his second was a wonderful free kick. Now, we had to overcome the disappointment of going 3–0 down on the night and 3–2 behind on aggregate. It was a really tough moment but I knew that we had 30 minutes left and one goal could change everything. That’s exactly what happened.

We had such a winning mentality in the team and it kept us believing. Most of our group had been together since the 2013 Southeast Asian (SEA) Games. Our attitude was always to go out and fight, play with heart and play our style. We knew if we did that, we could beat anyone.

After all, we had proved our quality at the 2014 Asian Games where we beat China and gave South Korea a very hard semi-final and eventually finished in fourth place. I knew that with away goals counting, we still had a chance to lift the trophy, if not win the game.

Zico showed his confidence in us by letting us continue to play in the same style and avoiding any drastic changes despite going into the final 10 minutes a goal behind. When we did finally score, it came from an unlikely source.

I was never known as a goal

scorer—not

before this tournament and not after it either. My role was more to control the game, dictate the pace of play and help the team play. In this tournament, somehow, I scored a few goals, including two crucial penalties. I had such amazing confidence in front of goal, but that was not my normal style.

When the ball rebounded to me after the keeper saved a free kick, I took it on the half volley with my left foot and didn’t even think twice. It was such a special moment for me when it hit the net and I jumped over the advertising hoardings and tried to celebrate with the fans up in their small corner of the stadium.

It was also extremely satisfying to see the reaction of my teammates, coach Zico and the staff. If you score a goal that means a lot, it is an unforgettable moment. As a team, we had not played particularly well in that match. Personally, I didn’t think I was having a great game but, of course, one goal changed everything.

The goal gave us one hand on the trophy and then our second goal, a spectacular strike from Chanathip Songkrasin, made sure we were going to win it.

I was proud to be a part of this team and to provide some important goals. Winning the trophy changed my life. But it’s fair to say that our success surprised some.

I wouldn’t say that the fans and the media expected us to win because, let’s be honest, the team was very young. We didn’t have some of our strongest players, including Theerathon Bunmathan and Teerasil Dangda. We went more or less with the U23 squad that had been to the Asian Games and added a few older players who were not necessarily starters. But we worked so hard in a training camp before the tournament.

People might expect that working with Zico involves a lot of work with the ball, but it also requires an awful lot of running. That playing style was enjoyable but it was also very hard work.

An inexperienced squad requires a certain type of leader, and Zico is a coach who knows how to deal with young players. He had so many rules. For example, when training started, everyone’s shirts had to be tucked into their shorts. If you didn’t follow that rule, you had to do 10 push-ups. As a young player, you don’t question it, you just do it. But if you tell that to a 35-year-old, the reaction might be different.

The respect for the coach was so high because of everything he had achieved as a player and what he had already achieved with us as a coach. But he was also like a teammate at times because he still got involved in the games at training and in the rondos. He cracked jokes and sang songs and the atmosphere around us was just so positive. We were a real team before, during and after training.

We hung out together, drinking coffee and playing computer games and just had fun. Even on days off, we would get some balls and do a bit of extra work. We wanted to show everyone that we could win the trophy, so both individually and as a team, we were always focused on victory but we took it game by game.

During the buildup and even at our first AFF Cup game, there was almost no Thailand media presence. The country had slipped to an all-time low of 165 in the FIFA rankings just two months earlier, so the apathy was somewhat understandable. In the qualifying rounds for the 2015 AFC Asian Cup, Thailand lost all six matches, including 5–2 defeats to Lebanon at home and away.

Only about 5,000 fans showed up to see the humiliating home match against the

Lebanese—the

final match in an embarrassing campaign. I spent that match on the bench and was one of just six players in the squad that night who made it to the AFF Cup nine months later. Only one of the starting XI against Lebanon would be selected. It was clear that Zico was aiming for a completely fresh start, unburdened by past failures.

While the younger age groups had been taking positive steps, the senior side still had everything to prove to a sceptical public. But when we beat Singapore and Malaysia in the group stage, more and more people became interested. It was funny to see how fast everything changed.

I had already seen something similar in my career with the Switzerland U-17 side at the 2009 World Cup. We had a media day before the tournament and almost no one was there. When we reached the final, the whole room was full of Swiss media, including TV. It felt a bit like déjà vu in 2014.

Expectations for the AFF Cup may have been low among the media and the fans back home, but the players really believed that we could win it for the first time in 12 years.

The opening match of a tournament is always very important and it can have a big impact on confidence and momentum. The first crucial moment arrived for me in the closing minutes of our first match of the group stage against Singapore.

After training each day, we had been practising penalties and before every game, Zico asked who wanted to take them. I was always the first to raise my hand so it was destined to be my duty.

We had taken an early lead but Singapore soon equalised. It looked like the game was going to end in a stalemate until we were awarded a penalty with just a couple of minutes remaining.

When I got the ball, I wasn’t really thinking about the importance of the kick. It was something I had been doing since I was five years old. We may have been playing in Singapore, but there were not that many home fans in the stadium.

I felt a little bit of pressure because I knew that scoring would almost certainly win us the game, but I didn’t think about it too much. I chose my corner and managed to put the ball past the goalkeeper, even though he guessed the right way. For me, the hard work had started to pay off.

I ran straight to Andy Schillinger, our physio, because since coming back from the Asian Games I had been struggling with a knee injury and I was so thankful to have him in the national team setup. We had been working on my right knee three times a

day —morning,

afternoon and

evening —to

keep the swelling down and allow me to play.

Next up, we had Malaysia at the Jalan Besar Stadium. Our games against them are always competitive and, as they are a neighbouring country, there is definitely a rivalry that adds an edge to fixtures against them.

It had