SIDELINED with a knee injury last year, gifted midfielder Charyl Chappuis will likely be back in harness for Thailand when it defends its Asean Football Federation Suzuki Cup trophy in November, the official Suki Cup website reported on Thursday.
The 24-year-old Thai-Swiss, who once played for Swiss Super League Club Grasshoppers, is coming back from a knee injury and was named to the 23-man Thai squad mentored by Kiatisuk Semanuang for the third round of the Asian FIFA World Cup qualifiers kicking off in September.
He will see action for the Thais on Sept. 1 against Saudi Arabia in the Saudi capital of Riyadh.
Now playing for Suphanburi in the Thai Premier League, Chappuis, with his midfield wizardry, was a thorn in the flesh for the Philippine Azkals in the semifinals of the region’s blue-ribbon soccer competition two years ago.
Although the Fiipino booters held the Thais to a scoreless draw in their home game at the Rizal Memorial Stadium, the baby-faced Chappuis presided in the War Elephants’ emphatic 3-0 triumph in front of a roaring Thai gallery at the packed Rajamangala Stadium in Bangkok to advance to the finals versus Malaysia.
He scored a goal each in the home-and-away finals against Malaysia as the charges of Senamuang, the Thai “Zico,” sealed a tense 4-3 aggregate victory in capturing their fourth Suzuki Cup championship.
The competition proved to be Chappuis’ last outing before going down with knee injury that left him sidelined for the entire 2015 season, missing a chance to play for the Thai Under-23 squad in the 28th Singapore Southeast Asian Games.
He played a starring role for the Thais when they copped the SEA Games gold medal in the Myanmar edition of the meet in 2013.
The midfield maestro, who has scored five international goals for Thailand, will be one man that Azkals’ coach Thomas Dooley will be looking out for when the host squad plays Thailand in its last Group A match on Nov. 25 at the Philippine Sports Stadium in Bocaue, Bulacan.
Another man to watch is striker Andyk Vermansyah, who has been tapped by Austrian coach Alfred Riedle to spearhead the comebacking Indonesian squad that has been bracketed in the same group as the Philippines, Thailand and Singapore.
Playing for Selangor FA in the Malaysian Super League, Vermansyah is reputedly the highest-paid Indonesian in the league, earning $150,000 (approximately P6.9 million) a month.
He has scored a total of 15 goals in League and Cup play since signing up with the club in 2014.
A native of Jember, East Java, he showed his early potential as a prolific scorer way back in 2012 when he scored five goals for the Indonesian Under-21 squad that saw action in the fourth Hassanal Bolkiah Trophy tournament in Brunei.
Vermansyah will be strutting his wares for Reidle when the Garuda, the Indonesian national team’s moniker, play Malaysia in a tuneup match on Sept. 6 at the Manahan Stadium in Solo, Indonesia.
Caption: Thai midfielder Charyl Chappuis