Too quiet for my liking

It's still too quiet for my liking over at the Cambodia Football Federation headquarters about the future of the Cambodian national football team. As I wrote in my blog here last month, I have been waiting for the fall-out from the team's recent participation in the AFF Suzuki Cup, where they played three games and lost all three. Coach Prak Sovannara is still in charge as far as I'm aware, and rightly so, guiding the team to the finals of the Suzuki Cup with such a young team (average age of 22) and should be given a fair crack of the whip, plus the fact that he's the only recognized senior coach in the country. However, there's been precious little comment from the guys at the top about the future, including any details of forthcoming games for the national team during 2009. The end of the year will see Cambodia taking part in the SE Asia Games in Laos but they will need to prepare for this with a series of friendly matches and any other regional mini-tournaments that they can enter. The FFC's top knobs have been over in France recently, sussing out some contacts at Paris St Germain and beginning the process of scouting any young Khmer talent that is currently playing abroad. They've already identified a goalkeeper currently playing in the French 2nd Division, though he'll have to be good to displace the current custodian, Samreth Seiha. I also get the vibe that they'll be seeking to give citizenship to anyone who sticks their hand up, claiming they have some Khmer blood in their family ancestry. I just hope it doesn't get silly like in Singapore where most of the team are as un-Singaporean as me. They're also heading for Switzerland to invite Sepp Blatter to Cambodia, god help us. Meanwhile, the Hun Sen Cup is in full flow with games at the Olympic Stadium every Saturday for the next few weeks. Qualifying matches took place in the provinces before the qualifiers were drawn against the professional teams of the Premier League and 1 game is being shown live on local tv every Saturday afternoon. The Cambodia Premier League begins again in early February. Finally, the FFC have kicked-off their own website but don't expect too many bells and whistles.