(adds more matches)
By Martin Petty
BANGKOK, Nov 18 - Surayuth Chaikamdee scored his
seventh goal in four matches to help Thailand beat Yemen 1-0 on
Sunday and earn a place in the third round of qualifiers for the
2010 World Cup.
Surayuth, who in July was dropped from the Thais' Asian Cup
squad, put the hosts ahead on 16 minutes when he fired a bullet
header into the roof of the net from eight metres after captain
Tawan Sripan found him unmarked in the area.
Thailand went through 2-1 on aggregate and were joined by
arch-rivals Singapore, who secured a 1-1 draw with Tajikistan to
progress 3-1 on aggregate, even though nine of their players
were suffering from acute stomach pains.
They will be Southeast Asia's only teams in the next round
after Indonesia were eliminated following an embarrassing 7-0
thrashing by Syria in Damascus.
Turkmenistan also advanced after a 3-0 win over Hong Kong in
Ashgabat.
With Bangkok's Supachalasai stadium packed with raucous fans
eager to catch a glimpse of Thailand's trio of new Manchester
City signings, the hosts dominated the match.
Goal-hungry Surayuth almost bagged his second when he struck
the post from close range on the stroke of halftime and Sutee
Suksomkit could have made it two on the hour mark when his
effort was blocked.
Yemeni goalkeeper Salem Saeed pulled off a fine save four
minutes later to deny Nirut Surasiang and Surayuth and Datsakorn
Thonglao both came close in the final minutes with the crossbar
and some acrobatics from Saeed keeping the score down.
EXCITING MATCH
"It was an exciting match, this team did very well," Thai
coach Charnwit Polcheewin told reporters.
"Our target is to get through to the fourth round and we
have to start preparing for that now."
Yemen's assistant coach, Ahmad Sari, said head coach Muhsin
Saleh's heart attack two days ago had affected the players.
"We had our chance to qualify and we lost it," Sari said.
"We had a hard match and our coach's condition was a problem for
many of the players. We are very worried about him."
In Dushanbe, Jamshed Ismailov gave Tajikistan an early lead
but their hopes of qualifying faded in the 27th minute when
prolific Singaporean striker Noh Alam Shah found the net.
Singapore coach Radojko Avramovic said his side deserved to
go through and the players did well to overcome what he believed
was food poisoning picked up in Tajikistan.
"Nine of my players were sick during the trip and we still
managed to play well," the Serb told Reuters by telephone.
"We deserved to go through. We played tough and got the
result we needed."
Ziad Chabo scored a hat-trick and Raja Rafe scored twice to
put Syria's team of part-time players into round three, adding
to Indonesia's woes with an aggregate 11-1 hammering of the 1938
World Cup qualifiers.
Sunday's winners complete the lineup for round three, which
will include seeds Australia, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Japan
and Iran.
The 20 teams will be split into five groups of four, with
winners and runners-up progressing.
Asia has four berths at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa,
with a possible fifth up for grabs in a playoff with Oceania's
top finisher.
(Editing by Pritha Sarkar)