In the quadrangular competition featuring the hosts Vietnam, Bahrain's Under-23 side and New Zealand, Thailand will field almost the same squad that is scheduled to play in the upcoming Asian Games. The round-robin event sees Chanwit's side taking on Bahrain in the opening match on Wednesday.

Chanwit, who steered Thailand to their seventh successive SEA Games title last year in the Philippines, has set his sights on wining all the matches or at least claiming seven points in the tournament, a curtain raiser to the Asian Games to be held in Qatar in December. Chanwit stressed that his team had to be wary of the challenges from both Bahrain and New Zealand, teams he had little information about, and Vietnam, who would provide a stiff test to his young side.

Chanwit shrugged off suggestions that the Vietnamese were now ahead of Thailand, who have long been regarded as the frontrunners in the region, following a string of poor results against them recently.

"We lost to them [Vietnam] in recent tournaments, leading to doubts about our football programme and development. The criticisms were made with good intentions and by people who have the future of the national team in their minds. But I'm not worried, as the losses were in away games," said Chanwit.

"When the Vietnamese visit us, I don't think the result will be the same. I think the reason why Vietnam invited us to play there is to give their team a psychological boost. They just want to beat us and they just love it.

"We must acknowledge the fact that the Vietnamese have made rapid progress. Our future is worrying, as we still don't have a real professional league while their league is successful. Their professional football foundation is much better than us and their young players are more determined than our players," added Chanwit.

Chanwit yesterday announced his 20-member squad for the tournament, which is mostly made up of SEA Games side.