The Thailand national football team (, , ) represents Thailand in senior international men's football and is controlled by the Football Association of Thailand.
In the regional competition, Thailand is the most successful football team in Southeast Asia with 7 ASEAN Championship trophies and nine senior-level gold medals from the Southeast Asian Games, the most of any Southeast Asian country. In higher levels, Thailand achieved the third place in the 1972 AFC Asian Cup where it was the host, and has a total of seven appearances in the AFC Asian Cup so far.
Furthermore, Thailand reached the fourth-place in the 1990 and 1998 Asian Games and participated in the Summer Olympics twice. However, Thailand has failed to obtain higher achievements in the continental and global records. The team obtained their first win in the AFC Asian Cup in 2007 and had to wait 47 years to finally sneak out of the group stage in 2019. Thailand also advanced to the final round of World Cup qualification twice, in 2002 and 2018, but has yet never achieved to qualify for the FIFA World Cup.
History
Dynastic establishment (1915–1995)
The team's predecessor, which operated under the name of Siam, was founded in 1915 and played its first unofficial match against a team of Europeans at the Royal Bangkok Sports Club Stadium on 20 December that year. The team played its first international match in 1930 against the Indochina national team, which included both South Vietnamese and French players.
Thailand appeared in the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne, where their loss to Great Britain 0–9, was the largest to that point, thus failing to advance to the quarter-finals. In 1959, Thailand as the host won silver medals in the Southeast Asian Peninsular Games after losing 1–3 to South Vietnam in the final. In 1965, Thailand harbored its first distinct title: the very first place in the Southeast Asian Games. They made their second and latest appearance at the Summer Olympics in 1968, losing all three matches by at least 3 goals margin to Bulgaria, Guatemala, and Czechoslovakia hence en route to a first-round exit.
1992 AFC Asian Cup During the 1992 AFC Asian Cup qualification, Thailand gained a significant success defeating South Korea 2–1 and Bangladesh 1–0 to top the group and qualify to the 1992 AFC Asian Cup making their return to the tournament after a 20-years hiatus. The team's performance at the final tournament was drawing first two matches with Qatar and eventual 3rd place China then losing 0–4 to Saudi Arabia. In 1994, manager Thawatchai Sartjakul assembled a team that has been denounced as the "dream team" with players like Kiatisuk Senamuang, Tawan Sripan and Dusit Chalermsan.
Flag bearer of Southeast Asia (1996–2022) In 1996, Thailand defeated Malaysia 1–0 and win the 1996 AFF Championship for the first time. Thailand were favorites to regain the crown in 2007, 2008 and 2012 only to lose tight finals to Singapore and Vietnam respectively.
1996 AFC Asian Cup Thailand also participated in the 1996 AFC Asian Cup where they were drawn in Group B alongside Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Iran and Iraq. However, Thailand finish last in the group stage thus bowed out from the tournament in the early phase.
The regional 1998 AFF Championship saw Thailand met Indonesia in a match that ill-hearted players from both team deliberately making actions aimed to avoid facing hosts Vietnam in the semi-finals and undergoing technical burden of moving training bases from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi.1998 Tiger Cup Match Highlight FIFA fined both teams $40,000 for "violating the spirit of the game". Thailand eventually lost the match, inevitably encountered and failed to Vietnam in the semi-finals.
2000 AFC Asian Cup Thailand consecutively qualified to and participated in two AFC Asian Cup final tournaments both held within Western Asia in 1996 and 2000 when their "dream team" was beginning its golden period. Coincidentally in both editions, the team's opponents all came from Western Asia and they are Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Iran and Iraq, with the latter two share the same group with Thailand twice. In both editions, Thailand made two draws and lost the rest, bottomed the group stage of the first and is the worst third-placed team of the second edition.
The final 2000 AFF Championship match between Thailand and Indonesia, at a sold-out Rajamangala, was almost a carbon copy of their group stage encounter. The War Elephants triumphed 4–1 again with Worrawoot setting up camp at the opponents' goal. The 28-year-old scored twice in their first match and in the final struck a hat-trick in the first 32 minutes. In the final 2002 AFF Cup final, Thailand again met Indonesia (who was now the host) and won the game in penalty shootout despite taking a 2–0 lead.
Fourth consecutive AFC Asian Cup appearances Thailand again qualified to the 2004 AFC Asian Cup and was put into a group with Japan, Iran and debutant Oman. Despite vast experiences in the AFC Asian Cup, the team has yet to show a sign of improvement as they lost all matches and became the worst-performed team in the whole tournament. The sign of improvement only came in the 2007 AFC Asian Cup when Thailand participated as a well-prepared co-host and was placed with the debutant Australia, Oman, and Iraq. The team managed a draw to Iraq and a historic 2–0 win over Oman. With 4 points ahead, Thailand's chance to qualify for the next round for the first time since 1972 was all but shattered by the likes of Australia in a 0–4 demolition. The tournament witnessed the end of Thailand's recognizable generation with later retirements of Kiatisuk, Tawan, and Pipat.
In September 2008, Thailand signed a four-year contract with the English coach Peter Reid but Reid left his position by mutual consent after only a year in charge as his team fail to clinch the championship of 2008 AFF Championship after 2–3 on aggregate lost to Vietnam in the final.
In September 2009, Bryan Robson agreed to coach Thailand in his first foray into international football management and was contracted to manage the team through to the 2014 FIFA World Cup. In November, Robson celebrated his first competitive match in charge of the team with an away victory against Singapore in a 2011 AFC Asian Cup qualifying group match but then lose to the same opponent back home. Then, two goalless draws with Jordan and Iran in January 2010 and an 0–1 away lost to Iran in March all effectively ended the chance of qualifying for the 2011 AFC Asian Cup. In preparations for the 2010 AFF Championship, Robson led Thailand to victorious run against Singapore and Bob Houghton's India in a series of friendlies. However, when entering the tournament in December, he failed to bring Thailand past group A after managing only draws against Laos and Malaysia and losing to Indonesia. Robson resigned as Thailand's manager on 8 June 2011, citing health problems as the reason and was replaced by Winfried Schäfer, who would be the ninth German person to coach the Thailand team.
The new coach called up starlets for the 2014 FIFA World Cup qualifiers and have the starting set of matches losing minimal to Australia, defeating Oman 3–0 and drawing Saudi Arabia but did not make it after losing to these teams altogether in the second set. In the 2012 AFF Championship, Thailand topped their group and surpassed Malaysia in the semi-finals but handed the crown to Singapore in the finals. In the 2015 AFC Asian Cup qualification, Thailand showed a setback with its defensive frailties exposed by Middle Eastern rivals (Iran, Kuwait, Lebanon) when losing all 6 games in the qualifiers, conceding 21 goals in the process.
In June 2013, Schäfer canceled his contract. The FA of Thailand appointed the former player Kiatisuk Senamuang as the new caretaker coach for the national team. His first ride was a friendly against China on 15 June, which Thailand surprisingly won 5–1.
In 2014, Thailand ended a 12-year drought of the AFF Championship title from the late goals by Charyl Chappuis and Chanathip Songkrasin which gave them a dramatic 4–3 aggregate victory over Malaysia in the second leg of the finals in Bukit Jalil. The team did not lose any match up until the second leg of the finals and often featured a tiki-taka playing style, for instance including 27 consecutive passes during the first leg of the finals against Malaysia. Kiatisuk Senamuang consequently became the first person to win the AFF Championship as both a player and a coach. Thailand succeeded in protecting AFF Championship reign two years later in 2016, defeating Indonesia 3–2 aggregately despite losing the first leg.
In 2015, evasion fueled hope for both the players and Thailand fans of finally reaching the World Cup tournament and tension is mounting as the national team commenced AFC's second round for 2018 FIFA World Cup qualification. Teerasil Dangda, Thailand's renowned striker, rejoined the rank of the national team after his loan with UD Almería ended earlier. Drawn in Group F along with Chinese Taipei, Iraq and Vietnam, who Thailand played its first match home against on 24 May and can only be won by a victory goal from a shot 20 yards away. They played a much easier match at the same opponent's home soil, winning 3–0. Thailand won both matches against Chinese Taipei and drew 2–2 both matches against Iraq, allowing them to qualify for the next round as group F winners. In the last round, Kiatisuk's men shared the same group with Australia, Japan, Saudi Arabia, UAE along with previous opponent, Iraq. Again, Thailand was eliminated without winning a match and recorded only two points out of ten matches.
Southeast Asia all-time record
In the 2016 AFF Championship, Thailand was drawn in Group A alongside Indonesia, Philippines and Singapore. Thailand went on to win all of their group stage games thus facing off against Myanmar in the semi-finals where Thailand would battered them 6–0 on aggregate to advance to the final. In the final, Thailand faced off against Indonesia where they lost 2–1 against the opponent in Bogor but comeback to a 2–0 win bringing the aggregate on 3–2 thus seeing Thailand won their fifth AFF Championship title.
Since taking over the administration by Somyot Poompanmoung, FA Thailand aims to drive men's national football team to be one of the leading teams in Asia by which there are concrete 20 years development plans and preparations. After the elimination from World Cup qualifiers, Kiatisuk Senamuang resigned and Thailand appointed Serbian head coach Milovan Rajevac. Under Rajevac, however, Thailand failed to defend its AFF Championship title in 2018 when losing Malaysia in the semi-finals by the away goals rule.
2019 AFC Asian Cup Ahead of 2019 AFC Asian Cup, Thailand was drawn into group A together with the host UAE, Bahrain and India. Rajevac oversaw Thailand in the commencing 1–4 loss to India. The Serbian coach was sacked and his assistant, Sirisak Yodyardthai became the interim coach on 7 January. Sirisak guided Thailand to a 1–0 win over Bahrain and a 1–1 draw with the host UAE, enough to move on to the knockout stage of the AFC Asian Cup for the first time in 47 years. Their success was greeted with congratulation from the FA. Thailand encountered China in the round of sixteen, taking an early lead but eventually lost 2–1 as China make their decisive respond.