【Me】How would you compare the level of this season's Division one, to that of the TPL back in 2011? ( The same year Katano first arrived to TPL.)
【Katano】Actually the TPL back in 2011 was very very tough. Because teams were still allowed to sign 7 foreign players. So there were more tough and physical foreign players on the field, making the match more difficult. This season’s Thai Division One is also a tough one. Its style is just similar to the TPL. But most of the teams could not compact the space. There are so many 1 on 1 situation because they could not play as a unit quite well, leaving lots of space wide opened. The only exception is Police United. They are playing TPL level football.
※ Katano vs Police United.
【Me】Is winning a TPL spot a target of Sukhothai this season?
【Katano】 The original target was to win the promotion next season. If we want to win it this season, perhaps we also need a bit of luck. But the players all want to go up ASAP.
【Me】Are you playing as center back at Sukhothai?
【Katano】Yes. During the trial and friendly matches, I played as defensive midfielder and attacking midfielder too. I even scored and assisted when I played as attacking MF. But in the league I mainly played as a center back.
※ Side back, center back, defensive MF and attacking MF, Katano is still collecting weapons to his arsenal.
When Katano first arrived to Hong Kong, he said he wants to play center back from now on after playing 4 seasons as side back in Osotspa. And now he succeeded. As for his attacking skills, probably I could see them more in his training. Katano invited me to see him train and of course I accepted it. However the training started at around 4:30 pm, and it was still lunch time after the interview was done. So I decided to take a look at the Historical Park by myself first. And meeting Katano again at 4 pm. He liked this idea.
We left the restaurant and took a short walk together. Katano actually rode a bicycle to get here. Some local people recognized him. He told me that I better don’t walk on the street during the night here because the light was dim and street dogs were everywhere. I said I had been to Buriram and Suphanburi before so it wasn’t something new to me and I had no problem with that when I visited those 2 provinces. Actually Sukhothai is more lively than Buriram and Suphanburi, at least I could still find Tuk-Tuk on the street at night. After the walk I went getting a Tuk-Tuk to the historical park which definitely worth a visit. I didn’t have enough time to completely explore the park so I will skip to the training part. ※ Snapshot in the New Town。
【Me】Is there any other Japanese living in Sukhothai?
【Katano】I did see some Japanese here, but they were all travelers. I haven't met any other Japanese who is living here.
At 4pm, I arrived to the meeting place which was Katano’s hotel and his teammate drove us together to the stadium. His teammate pulled over in the middle of the ride and Katano got off and walked into the street. He returned soon with a Sukhothai jersey in his hand. It was his No.33 Sukhothai home jersey and was a gift for me. It could be even better if that was a match-worn jersey. Unfortunately it wasn’t a match-day.
Sukhothai train and play their matches on the same piece of ground in their home stadium. Katano said their boss was planning to build training grounds and academy near the stadium. That requires a huge piece of land I think. That stadium is 15 minutes away from the New Town by car. The road to the stadium was very quiet; to be exact there was nothing aside the road. And when we returned to the town from the stadium at night, the only source of light was from the moon. That reminded me of my night ride from Phanom Rung to the city center during my last Buriram trip.
The Sukhothai stadium is located right next to their famous heart-shaped lake. And the empty land around the stadium was so huge that not only did it have enough space to build a training center, it’s also enough for hotel, residential or even commercial complex. Perhaps it will be developed into a Sports-theme attraction like Buriram too. I would suggest building a tower for tourists to overlook the heart-shaped lake. ※ A very large room for development around the stadium.
※ Sukhothai's heart-shaped lake.（Talaeluang Sukhothai）.Perhaps we can call it "Su-heart-lake".
【Me】So you are the only Japanese in Sukhothai?
【Katano】Hahaha, no, we also have Yuto.
We were talking about “Yuto Nakagawa”, Katano’s Japanese teammate in Sukhothai. Yuto has been playing in Thailand since 2013. He joined Sukhothai last year. And this year he got Katano as his buddy. They went to Malaysia together for renewing their visas. This season the impact of Japanese players on TPL is less than the past seasons before. However the Japanese footballers are always tough. So there are still many Japanese players in Division One. I hope Hong Kong players will also have the chance to challenge it.
※ Katano and Yuto.
I took a look around the stadium while they went changing uniforms. I always like touching the natural grass on a good pitch. The team train and play on the same ground therefore some spots were not in good condition, but overall it's still better then most of the grounds in Hong Kong. Some area was in perfect condition which was real sexy to feel and to look.
The standard capacity of the stadium is 4000. However it isn’t a full-seated stadium so the maximum capacity can be more than 4000. The training session lasted for 2.5 hours which was 1 hour longer than the average time in Hong Kong. Katano said every training session was very intense. And they would also have gym session in the morning.
The weather in Sukhothai is not as hot as Bangkok but still hot, so even though the session started at 4:30pm, training for 2.5 hours was definitely as tough as he said. They spent lots of time in practice game and set-piece practice. I think training that hard is the reason why Sukhothai is in a strong run and now only one step away from the top 3. Perhaps right now the level of Division One is the same as the Hong Kong Premier League, but with this kind of facilities, this size of the league and this kind of intensive training, I think Hong Kong Premier League will be left behind very soon. I think we should just replace our shitty so-called natural grass with Thai-quality grass first.（Next page）※ The training started in late afternoon until the sky went dark, a really intensive training.
※ Given that the pitch was being used for training about 2.5 hours per day, the pitch quality was reasonable.
※ Right now, only the new stands behind the goals and the VIP zone are full seated.
【Katano】Actually the TPL back in 2011 was very very tough. Because teams were still allowed to sign 7 foreign players. So there were more tough and physical foreign players on the field, making the match more difficult. This season’s Thai Division One is also a tough one. Its style is just similar to the TPL. But most of the teams could not compact the space. There are so many 1 on 1 situation because they could not play as a unit quite well, leaving lots of space wide opened. The only exception is Police United. They are playing TPL level football.
※ Katano vs Police United.
【Me】Is winning a TPL spot a target of Sukhothai this season?
【Katano】 The original target was to win the promotion next season. If we want to win it this season, perhaps we also need a bit of luck. But the players all want to go up ASAP.
【Me】Are you playing as center back at Sukhothai?
【Katano】Yes. During the trial and friendly matches, I played as defensive midfielder and attacking midfielder too. I even scored and assisted when I played as attacking MF. But in the league I mainly played as a center back.
※ Side back, center back, defensive MF and attacking MF, Katano is still collecting weapons to his arsenal.
When Katano first arrived to Hong Kong, he said he wants to play center back from now on after playing 4 seasons as side back in Osotspa. And now he succeeded. As for his attacking skills, probably I could see them more in his training. Katano invited me to see him train and of course I accepted it. However the training started at around 4:30 pm, and it was still lunch time after the interview was done. So I decided to take a look at the Historical Park by myself first. And meeting Katano again at 4 pm. He liked this idea.
We left the restaurant and took a short walk together. Katano actually rode a bicycle to get here. Some local people recognized him. He told me that I better don’t walk on the street during the night here because the light was dim and street dogs were everywhere. I said I had been to Buriram and Suphanburi before so it wasn’t something new to me and I had no problem with that when I visited those 2 provinces. Actually Sukhothai is more lively than Buriram and Suphanburi, at least I could still find Tuk-Tuk on the street at night. After the walk I went getting a Tuk-Tuk to the historical park which definitely worth a visit. I didn’t have enough time to completely explore the park so I will skip to the training part. ※ Snapshot in the New Town。
【Me】Is there any other Japanese living in Sukhothai?
【Katano】I did see some Japanese here, but they were all travelers. I haven't met any other Japanese who is living here.
At 4pm, I arrived to the meeting place which was Katano’s hotel and his teammate drove us together to the stadium. His teammate pulled over in the middle of the ride and Katano got off and walked into the street. He returned soon with a Sukhothai jersey in his hand. It was his No.33 Sukhothai home jersey and was a gift for me. It could be even better if that was a match-worn jersey. Unfortunately it wasn’t a match-day.
Sukhothai train and play their matches on the same piece of ground in their home stadium. Katano said their boss was planning to build training grounds and academy near the stadium. That requires a huge piece of land I think. That stadium is 15 minutes away from the New Town by car. The road to the stadium was very quiet; to be exact there was nothing aside the road. And when we returned to the town from the stadium at night, the only source of light was from the moon. That reminded me of my night ride from Phanom Rung to the city center during my last Buriram trip.
The Sukhothai stadium is located right next to their famous heart-shaped lake. And the empty land around the stadium was so huge that not only did it have enough space to build a training center, it’s also enough for hotel, residential or even commercial complex. Perhaps it will be developed into a Sports-theme attraction like Buriram too. I would suggest building a tower for tourists to overlook the heart-shaped lake. ※ A very large room for development around the stadium.
※ Sukhothai's heart-shaped lake.（Talaeluang Sukhothai）.Perhaps we can call it "Su-heart-lake".
【Me】So you are the only Japanese in Sukhothai?
【Katano】Hahaha, no, we also have Yuto.
We were talking about “Yuto Nakagawa”, Katano’s Japanese teammate in Sukhothai. Yuto has been playing in Thailand since 2013. He joined Sukhothai last year. And this year he got Katano as his buddy. They went to Malaysia together for renewing their visas. This season the impact of Japanese players on TPL is less than the past seasons before. However the Japanese footballers are always tough. So there are still many Japanese players in Division One. I hope Hong Kong players will also have the chance to challenge it.
※ Katano and Yuto.
I took a look around the stadium while they went changing uniforms. I always like touching the natural grass on a good pitch. The team train and play on the same ground therefore some spots were not in good condition, but overall it's still better then most of the grounds in Hong Kong. Some area was in perfect condition which was real sexy to feel and to look.
The standard capacity of the stadium is 4000. However it isn’t a full-seated stadium so the maximum capacity can be more than 4000. The training session lasted for 2.5 hours which was 1 hour longer than the average time in Hong Kong. Katano said every training session was very intense. And they would also have gym session in the morning.
The weather in Sukhothai is not as hot as Bangkok but still hot, so even though the session started at 4:30pm, training for 2.5 hours was definitely as tough as he said. They spent lots of time in practice game and set-piece practice. I think training that hard is the reason why Sukhothai is in a strong run and now only one step away from the top 3. Perhaps right now the level of Division One is the same as the Hong Kong Premier League, but with this kind of facilities, this size of the league and this kind of intensive training, I think Hong Kong Premier League will be left behind very soon. I think we should just replace our shitty so-called natural grass with Thai-quality grass first.（Next page）※ The training started in late afternoon until the sky went dark, a really intensive training.
※ Given that the pitch was being used for training about 2.5 hours per day, the pitch quality was reasonable.
※ Right now, only the new stands behind the goals and the VIP zone are full seated.
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