I just got in from a Bangkok taxi ride where the taxi driver could not stop talking about Manchester United playing football in Thailand. According to him, (and the Thai newspaper Thai Rath, I later found out), it’s just been announced that Manchester United will be coming to Thailand for a few days in July, 2013. On their trip, they will play a friendly game against the Thai Premiere League All-Stars (can you say “slaughtered”?)
If you ask just about any Thai, Manchester United figures into their list of Top 3 football clubs of all time. “Man-ches-turrrr”, as Thais pronounce it, is talked about by many as Thailand’s favorite football club, so to hear Manchester United will be actually playing in Thailand next year, you’ve no idea how many millions of Thais that little snippet of news will make happy. And how long the time between now and July 2013 will seem. . I can only imagine how fast the tickets will sell out.
All that’s known right now is Manchester United will be in Thailand sometime around the early to middle of July, 2013 for around three days. The Manchester game against the Thai Premiere League All-Stars is likely to be played at the massive Rajamangala Stadium (that’s where all the big rock concerts are held) so they can fit in as many football fans as possible.
Of course, nobody expects the Thai team to do particularly well as, as much as Thais love football, their teams are not that good at it,. It won’t matter for Thai fans at all however. They’ll just be thrilled to see the game and their football idols up close.
And, of course, England’s Wayne Rooney and Spain’s David de Gea will be part of the squad. Yay!