By Kitinan Sanguansak – AFF Thai correspondent
Thailand’s German coach Winfried Schaefer said a result of a friendly against Singapore today was of little importance, with his eyes on the team’s opening Group D match against Australia in the World Cup qualifiers next month.
Thailand take on Singapore tonight
The Thai side will begin its qualifying campaign with a tricky trip to Australia to face the Socceroos in Brisbane on September 2 before playing host to Oman four days later at Rajamangala National stadium. The other team in the group is Saudi Arabia.
Schaefer’s men limber up for a visit to Australia with the Singapore fixture today, with Holger Osieck, the Australia team’s coach, reportedly going to be in the stands at Rajamangala.
“The outcome of tomorrow’s match isn’t important for me. I’ll use the game to experiment with our tactics and watch the form of players before we trim the squad down to 23,” said Schaefer.
The German, the third foreign coach during Worawi Makudi’s reign as the Football Association of Thailand president, revealed he had a decision to make on which players to play in defensive roles.
“I would like to see Adul (Lahso) and Surat (Sukha) play together as defensive midfielders. But, in the second game against Palestine in the previous round, I put Surat at the left back and he did well.
“In regard to the right back, we lost Suree (Sukha) to injury problem. So, Jakaphan (Kaewprom) might deputise in that position again.
“I would try to give players as many as possible a chance to play against Singapore. Some of them would not play in the same role as at their clubs,” said Schaefer.
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