The Thai team, despite being regarded as the strongest in the region after winning the SEA Games title many times, left the Shah Alam Stadium in Kuala Lumpur in disgrace last night after failing to reach the final for the 39th year in a row.

The team had vowed to put an end to their poor run in the tournament, but instead came away with no wins from their three matches after a 2-2 draw with Burma, a 2-1 defeat to Malaysia and a 1-0 loss to Indonesia.

After Bayu Sutha of Indonesia blasted a shot into the net in the 27th minute, Thailand could have leveled if an attempt from star striker Teeratep Winothai in the 32nd minute was allowed by the Malaysian referee.

Enraged Thai coach Chanvit Polchivin blamed biased judging for his team's loss as he was adamant there was nothing wrong with Teeratep's goal.

"We played better than in the previous matches, but we were unlucky and robbed of victory. There is no way that Teeratep's goal was off-side," said a furious Chanvit.

"The referee did a very poor job and appeared to be on the Indonesian side. We learned a lesson and we'd better win other tournaments on a fair game basis," he added.

But in the end the Thai team had only themselves to blame as they generated a series of scoring opportunities only to squander them all. "We had many chances but we didn't finish," said Chanvit. "Fitness was still our weakness as we had only four weeks to prepare. When we go back home, we will train even harder," added Chanvit.

Yingrak Raksuwan

The Nation

Kuala Lumpur