non-Brazilian/German/English team's chief. With the new coach, however, Thailand failed to defend its AFF Championship title in 2018 when losing Malaysia in the semi-finals by the away goals rule. Ahead of 2019 AFC Asian Cup, Thailand was drawn into group A together with the host UAE, Bahrain and India. Rajevac oversaw Thailand in the commencing 1–4 loss to India. The Serbian coach was sacked and his assistant, Sirisak Yodyardthai became the interim coach on 7 January. Sirisak guided Thailand to a 1–0 win over Bahrain and a 1–1 draw with the host UAE, enough to move on to the knockout stage of the AFC Asian Cup for the first time in 47 years. Their success was greeted with congratulation from the FA. Thailand encountered China in the round of sixteen, taking an early lead but eventually lost 2–1 as China make their decisive respond. After finishing in the fourth place of 2019 King's Cup and losing the rival Vietnam in that tournament, Sirisak had resigned and FA Thailand appointed the Japanese coach Akira Nishino, who had brought Japan to the round of 16 of 2018 FIFA World Cup, for replacement. This was the first-ever Asian coach becoming Thailand's head coach. The team was drawn into group G of the second round of 2022 World Cup qualification with other three Southeast Asian rivals: Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia; along with the UAE. Despite defeating Indonesia 3-0 and the UAE 2–1, Thailand failed to revenge Vietnam when getting goalless draws in both legs, while losing Malaysia 1–2 in Bukit Jalil. With these results, Thailand could only get the third place in group G after five qualifying matches. After a one-year disruption due to COVID-19 pandemic, Thailand and other teams in group G had to play their remaining matches in Dubai, UAE. However, the team suffered a huge loss of key players when Chanathip Songkrasin was injured, while Teerasil Dangda and Theerathon Bunmathan refused to participate the qualification due to various reasons. Without these three players, Thailand showed a poor performance in Dubai - drawn the bottom place team Indonesia 2–2, then lost the UAE 1–3 and Malaysia 0–1, respectively; which eventually pushed the team down to the fourth place of the group G. Nishino did not come back to Thailand to explain the team's failure, but unilaterally returning to Japan, which made FA Thailand appoint Anurak Srikerd as the caretaker and consider sacking Nishino