From the middle until the end of this year, Thailand will host three big tournaments - Asian Cup 2007 (7-29 July), the World Universiade (8-18 August) and the SEA Games (6-15 December). The FAT, though, has allegedly remained unclear about its policy in preparing the national team for each event, prompting Worawi to quash such an allegation.

Worawi said that the FAT has no hidden motives about selecting the national team, as now there is an Under-23 side for the 2008 Olympic qualifier and a senior team for the Asian Cup, co-hosted by Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam and Indonesia. He also confirmed that the door to the full national team is always open for a player no matter how old he is.

"We cannot impose a rule to exclude the old or young players from our Asian Cup team. Our purpose is to have the best for the squad," said Worawi.

"The Asian Cup will be played on our home soil. That means we have more chances of making to the quarterfinals or even the last four. To achieve that objective, we need the best players."

National team head coach Chanvit Pholchivin said that he always picked the players for the team from their performance and did not take the age factor into consideration.

"The FAT's policy over the national team players is already clear. In deed, I consider the players only from their performance. Their form in the league will be a good indicator whether they deserve to be included in the national team," said Chanvit.

Celtic march on

nIn Glasgow, Shunsuke Nakamura produced another virtuoso display as Celtic moved to within three victories of their 41st Scottish title with a 2-1 win over third-placed Aberdeen at Pittodrie yesterday.

 The Japanese playmaker set up Craig Beattie for the opener before killing the contest after just 20 minutes with one of his trademark free-kicks. Aberdeen grabbed a last-minute consolation goal through Darren Mackie.