Syria vs Thailand

Shabab Al Ahli Stadium is the venue as Syria and Thailand go head-to-head for the first time since 2016.

Given an embarrassing seven-game losing streak toward the tail-end of the last calendar year, 2023 couldn’t have come soon enough from Syria’s point of view. Not only have the ‘Qasioun Eagles’ lost seven consecutive friendly matches in the build-up to this encounter, but they failed to get on the scoresheet five times in this run. Playing at home is not necessarily a boost for Syria, considering they’ve lost their last four internationals on home turf by an identical 1-0 scoreline. But after finding the net in both historical H2Hs against Thailand (D2), they’ll be confident about troubling the scoreboard on home soil for the first time since June 2022.

However, taking on Thailand could be a scary thing these days after the ‘War Elephants’ won the 2022 AFF Championship in January, dispatching Vietnam in the final 3-2 on aggregate. Since shockingly losing to Chinese Taipei 1-0 in their final warm-up fixture ahead of the winter tournament, Alexandre Polking’s men have only lost once in their last eight outings (W5, D2), registering a clean sheet on four occasions. Excluding their triumphant AFF Championship journey, the visitors had won five consecutive away matches – four via multi-goal margins – before slumping to a 2-0 defeat to Uzbekistan on their most recent international travel.