Thailand coach Pölking in an interview: “Yesterday Lippstadt, today Bangkok – still unreal”

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Ex-Bielefeld in an interview

In recent years, the success of the Thai national team has been rather limited. The Southeast Asian kingdom failed to qualify for the Asian Cup in 2011 and 2015. A good three years ago, it was enough to get through the preliminary round if you took part. In the meantime, however, a positive trend and change can be seen. The national team has been unbeaten in eight games and most recently even won the Southeast Asian Championship. This success can also be attributed to the new national coach Mano Pölking. At Transfermarkt.de, the German-Brazilian talks about the success and his work in Thailand, which was extended to the end of 2023 by a contract extension on February 4th.

A word that, like no other, stands for many values ​​that are desirable in football is the word identification. Great, perhaps too great, importance is often attached to this word, and yet it seems that successful football is hardly possible without identification. When Mano Pölking signed the contract as Thai national coach in September last year, it was important for him to emphasize in the subsequent interviews that his players should carry out every training session with full dedication and, in particular, identify with the national team.

“I think nothing is as important in football as identification,” says Pölking. “For me, identification really means arriving. Be it in an association, club or in general in the country and to fully engage in the task, no matter how difficult the conditions may be. Many coaches or players fail abroad because they are never satisfied and always long for what is not there at the moment. Sooner or later this leads to personal and sporting failure.”

Pölking: “Many coaches try to bring too much into one session”

Pölking emphasizes that without identifying with Thai culture it would not have been possible for him to do good work at league level for years. He was runner-up with Bangkok United in 2016 and 2018 and reached the Thai Cup final in 2017. Pölking sees himself as a type of coach for whom values, principles and a high level of social skills are more important than, for example, just focusing on detailed tactical and system analyses.

“I think every trainer who has a pro license has a good understanding of how a training session should be structured theoretically,” says the 45-year-old. “But I have the feeling that a lot of coaches try to put too much into one session and kill the player with it. My credo is: keep it simple. It’s not about throwing 50 different technical terms at the player or explaining to him what types of systems are possible in football, it’s all about improving the individual professional. It doesn’t really matter whether I do it with a highly complicated exercise or with simple means. Imparting knowledge is about honesty and credibility. I can’t say every professional is the same and in the end I only pay attention to my regular players. I have to pick up every player by consciously taking my time on the pitch or in one-to-one meetings and explaining in detail what effects his actions have on the team – in a positive as well as a negative sense.”

Getting used to the Thai food culture was a challenge for the national coach at the beginning of his time in Thailand. In particular, the early days and the changeover to spicy dishes literally brought beads of sweat to his forehead. “It was just brutal. What we call spicy in Germany is a joke in Thailand. I still remember very well when I was served a beer for the first spicy dinner ever. After just sampling the dish, I was glad to have a cold beer by my side, which I downed in seconds just to ease the pain. Today I got used to the sharpness. What I haven’t gotten used to, however, are the exotic dishes, such as insects or the popular grilled frogs. I’d rather eat plain rice,” says the German-Brazilian with a laugh.

“I could realistically assess that I would never become a Bundesliga professional”

For Pölking, his career still feels a little unreal, because 20 years ago his focus as a player at VfB Fichte Bielefeld was on preparing for games against Westfalia Herne, FC Gütersloh or SV Lippstadt 08, for example. About Arminia’s second representation Bielefeld and Darmstadt 98 he came to Cyprus later in his career and even played in the UEFA Cup qualifiers with APOEL Nicosia. But it wasn’t enough for a great career, although he doesn’t see this as a defect. “It still feels unreal – yesterday Lippstadt, today Bangkok. If I’m honest, I could realistically assess that I would never become a Bundesliga professional.”

In fact, Pölking only went to Bielefeld to study business administration. “The fact that I was able to play a little bit of football and earn pocket money, so to speak, was a great side effect, so that I could pay for my apartment, my car and my tuition fees,” he says. “Of course it’s always an advantage to have played at a high level as a coach in order to understand how things work in the dressing room, but a long playing career does not guarantee you will become a great coach. Players and coaches are two different pairs of shoes that have nothing to do with each other. In general, I have a dream job. I get paid for what I love and I also get to travel the world, learn about new languages ​​and cultures. It doesn’t get any hotter than that.”

Pölking: “If I owe someone something, it’s Winnie Schäfer”

In 2009, the now 45-year-old decided to pursue a coaching career. In particular, football coach legend Winfried Schäfer shaped him over the next few years. He worked as an assistant to Schäfer at Al-Ain FC, FK Baku and the Thai national team. He is still grateful to Schäfer today. “If I owe anyone anything, it’s Winnie. Sometimes in life you need a chance to get ahead, Winnie gave me that chance. Actually, Winnie and I are completely different. I’m more of a bookworm, obsessed with detail, data affine, Winnie, on the other hand, is the ‘gut feeling trainer’. He showed me how to win people over, how to become a man-catcher. He didn’t need a laptop or a flipchart. For example, he took two or three serviettes in a restaurant and drew the tactics for a whole game on them. It was always important to him to see the atmosphere within the team. It happened that the training was only planned on the pitch. Winnie always said he wanted to see how the team was doing and then decide what to train for.”

For the 2012/2013 season, Pölking decided to continue on his own and took up his first head coaching position at the Thai first division club Army United, followed a year later by Suphanburi FC before finally moving to Bangkok United, where he worked as head coach for a full six years. During this time he also changed as a coach. He says: “I think if you don’t change or evolve as a person, you’re doing something terribly wrong in your life. It’s not about the character traits, but much more the perspective on certain things. When I started coaching, I wanted to be the offensive coach in the first place. I wanted to win every game 5-0. At some point I realized that this doesn’t work if you don’t have any idea about a basic defensive orientation, if you don’t know how defenders behave. So I started reading books on the subject, exchanging ideas with other trainers, but also with people from business to get completely different perspectives on leadership, among other things. Today I can say that I’m a good coach, but without personal development I won’t be a good coach in five years.”

In particular, the average age of almost 28 years could become a problem for the Thai national team and thus also for Pölking in the future, because apart from Thanawat Suengchitthawon (Leicester City U23) and Kritsada Kaman (Chonburi FC), all current national players are over 22 years old. The 45-year-old is committed to developing, promoting and integrating talent into the national team, although he knows that this is a major challenge. “I see two obstacles in the implementation of a successful future: There is a lack of clear structures and organization in the youth sector. Thailand has an extremely large number of talented street kickers, but they are not encouraged and, if at all, only come to proper team training for the first time at the age of 16 or 17. During my time at Bangkok United we managed to build up a complete youth base that was guaranteed regular training. However, these guys lack regular match practice, because unfortunately the development of youth leagues is progressing slowly and that’s mostly just friendlies.”

Pölking adds: “On the other hand, Thai players who are successful quickly get fed up. If you’re a Thai national player, you’ll quickly earn 10,000 to 20,000 US dollars a month, which is a lot of money by Thai standards. These players then also want to stay in their bubble and refrain from moving abroad because this would of course involve leaving their comfort zone. I can totally understand their motives too, but it doesn’t help Thai football if they voluntarily forego sporting improvement.”

With him on the sidelines, there should also be a clear, changed direction of the game. The fact that a positive trend is emerging was already evident in the last international matches. From eight games under the leadership of Pölking, Thailand was able to leave the place as the winner six times. In addition, the Thai national team secured the title at the Southeast Asian champions in December last year. With this pressure, of course, the expectations in the country are also increasing. A big dream of many Thais is to see their national team, the ‘War Elephants’, on a big stage at a World Cup. Pölking does not consider this impossible.

He says: “It’s normal for the pressure to increase. Especially in countries where there is a lot of poverty, football is an outlet and a kind of refuge. Due to the increase for the World Cup, it will be possible for eight Asian national teams to participate. In my opinion, this is a realistic dream, but in order for us to be able to turn this dream into reality, we still have to make some adjustments. However, I am convinced that we will achieve this together.”

Interview and text by Henrik Stadnischeko

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