Brunei vs Thailand

KLFA Stadium in Kuala Lumpur forms the backdrop for a ‘David v Goliath’ clash between Brunei and Thailand in their opening AFF Championship Group A opener.

Following a brace of wins over Laos and East Timor via an aggregate score of 7-2, Brunei slipped to a keenly-contested 1-0 defeat at East Timor in the build-up to this fixture. Curiously, since a penalty shootout loss to Macau in 2016, none of Brunei’s subsequent 14 internationals have finished as a draw (W4, L10), highlighting their propensity for playing ‘winner takes all’ matches. With eight (57%) of those games (won/lost) seeing the winner keep a clean sheet, opening the scoring could be a catalyst to sway this encounter each way. But it’s worth noting that the last time Brunei met a nation of Thailand’s caliber, they found themselves on the wrong side of a 4-0 scoreline against Malaysia earlier this year.

Meanwhile, Thailand massively underperformed in their final warm-up fixture ahead of this tournament, falling to an underwhelming 1-0 loss to Chinese Taipei. In addition to escorting their two-game winning streak out of the window, it also marked their first scoring blank since June. That said, Thailand’s poor-performing frontline has netted under 1.5 goals three times across their last five internationals. Adding to manager Alexandre Polking’s sizeable list of worries, his men have kept a single clean sheet during that five-game sequence. But as odds-on pre-match favorites, they should be cruising past Brunei in their first-ever international showdown.