Silent Lonesome Man

When Australia moved from the OFC to AFC in 2006, a number of question raised upon our head about Australia's football status. Well, it is a country mostly renowned in rugby and cricket rather than football - having just qualified for one World Cup in 1974; the 2006 marked Australia's second. However, Australia performed relatively well in that edition, only to fall to eventual champions Italy in the round of sixteen. But the AFC isn't uniform. It also includes sub-federations, which we have as of 2021, five sub-federation zones (West Asia, Central Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia and East Asia). Australia joined the Southeast Asian zone (AFF - ASEAN Football Federation) because of geographical proximity in 2013, but it has been the best-performed team from the region ever since, with five World Cups for now. Moreover, it carries the only honourable title for Southeast Asian football, the AFC Asian Cup, winning it in 2015. Australia is surely not at the best now - but by ou...

It's said easier than done, and it has always been the case of so many nations when it comes to major international games. This has been the case of Colombia back in 1986 FIFA World Cup, the country was the original winner, but later pulled out due to insufficient infrastructures for the competition. Colombia was, by far, the only World Cup host to voluntarily retreat from hosting. And that could be what is going to happen if Southeast Asia has the potential to win the bid, which, in my expectation, unlikely.

When Thailand lost 1-3 to the UAE and 0-4 to Iraq away in the latest 2018 FIFA World Cup qualification, it was seen as a dent. Thailand was the only country from Southeast Asia to be there, though, to be frank, if you count member from the ASEAN Football Federation (AFF), you may also think of Australia, the country where I have some connection over, due to my relatives studied in Down Under and some of my neighbours were students in here. But Australia and Thailand are totally two opposite polar. Australia has succeeded in establishing a name among Asia's mightiest, and a frequent World Cup participant since 2006, the year they joined the AFC. By contrast, Thailand has succeeded only in giving itself a supremacy in Southeast Asia - in fact, Thailand was, for a long time, the only Southeast Asian state to reach the final phase of World Cup qualifiers in Asia. Indonesia was the only World Cup participant there from Southeast Asia, though as a Dutch autonomous colony, it didn't p...

When Cambodia was announced as host of the 2023 Southeast Asian Games (potentially moved to 2025 due to the COVID-19 pandemic), the first thing Cambodia wanted to do was to build a massive stadium that must rival some of the world's finest. It is not a secret that the Cambodian government announced that the new stadium, replacing the outdated Phnom Penh Olympics Stadium, have to reflect the prideful past. In the end, a Chinese firm won and built the stadium. With 75,000 capacity, it has already become the largest stadium in mainland Southeast Asia, surpassing even Thailand's Rajamangala that holds only 50,000. For relatively 15 million people with a quite low-income economy, the building of this stadium was enormous both by cost and by personnel. More than 500 people were involved in the projects, with the Chinese nearly 350; while thousands of workers worked days and nights; the Chinese designation was to be an expression of long, ancient Sino-Cambodian relations. An even smal...

The drawn has made many ASEAN sides facing their own tasks with a lot of difficulties. However, this is typical since ASEAN zone is mostly regarded as a blackwater for many football pundits, due to its low international recognition in the footballing stage. Excluding Australia, the abnormal member of AFF that has the football capability beyond the reach, I take my personal discussion with the remaining national teams of Southeast Asia in their final pushes to get further attention. The Philippines can make surprises Group A: the Philippines have never been known as a football nation, and we can thank the Americans for that: colonisation, the introduction of English and America-based sports like basketball and boxing meant the country has languished outside the world's football map. From 2010s, the Philippines however started its football revival, which culminated in the country's greatest success up to date: 2019 AFC Asian Cup, which was the first time the Philippines qualified...