Buriram United opened their Thai League 1 campaign with a comfortable 3-1 win over Sukhothai at the weekend. The visitors took control early and never looked back, ending their opponents' hopes of a positive start to the season.
And here's the thing — Bissoli did most of the damage before half-time. He opened the scoring with a penalty in the fourteenth minute, then added two more in quick succession, one in the fortieth and another just before the break at forty-five plus two. That trio of goals put Buriram firmly in the driving seat.
Sukhothai pulled one back through Nathan Palafoz in the seventy-eighth minute, but it was too little, too late. By then the visitors had already tightened things up with several changes, bringing on Bissoli himself in the seventy-third after his work was done.
The statistics tell the story plainly enough. Buriram registered 81 attacks to Sukhothai's 52, dominated possession at 62 per cent, and saw their shots on target land with slightly less precision — thirty per cent accuracy compared to their hosts' thirty-six. Still, three goals from eight shots on target is enough when your opponents cannot find the net to match.
Four yellow cards were shown in total, two for each side, with the late arrivals coming around the seventy-fifth and eightieth minutes. Both teams made five substitutions each, though the pattern was different — Sukhothai made three changes together in the sixty-fourth minute while Buriram spread theirs across the final quarter.
What this means on the table is straightforward. Buriram sit second after one game with three points from a victory, while Sukhothai are fourteenth with none. To be fair, one match does not make a season, but ground out results like this are how you build momentum.
