Thiha Sithu

Thiha Sithu (Burmese: သီဟစည်သူ) is a Burmese professional football player who plays as a goalkeeper for Shan United FC and Myanmar National Football Team. During his career, he played for Ministry of Commerce, Ayeyawady United and Yadanarbon. Within his 11 years of professional club career life, he contributed his all clubs to win nine champions along with five 1st runner ups. Sithu also set the Myanmar National League clean sheet record by not conceding a single goal for 14 matches in 2017.[2] and he was also winner of 2014 Myanmar National League Best Player award.[3]

In this Burmese name, the given name is Thiha Sithu. There is no family name.
Thiha Sithu
Personal information
Full name Thiha Sithu
Date of birth (1987-02-10) 10 February 1987[1]
Place of birth Yangon, Myanmar
Height 1.78 m (5 ft 10 in)
Position(s) Goalkeeper
Youth career
1997–2003

Integrated Training School

for Sports and Education
2004-2008 Ministry of Commerce FC
Senior career*
Years Team Apps (Gls)
2009–2012 Ayeyawady United 83 (0)
2013–2014 Yadanarbon 45 (0)
2015–2020 Shan United 97 (0)
Total 225 (0)
International career‡
2000 Myanmar U14
2005 Myanmar U17
2005 Myanmar U20
2009–2011 Myanmar U23
2010–2018 Myanmar 37 (0)
*Club domestic league appearances and goals
‡ National team caps and goals, correct as of 5 October 2017

Sithu started his international debut for U-14 Myanmar Youth National Team in 2000 and he represented Myanmar Youth National Team U-14, U-17, U-20, U23 and Myanmar National Team from 2000 to 2018.[4] Therefore, he was considered one of the long time starting goalkeepers in Myanmar.

Honors

Club

Ayeyawaddy United FC

Yadanabon FC

Shan United FC

Individual

International

Early life

Sithu was born in Ayeyarwady Region and attended Integrated Training School for Sports and Education in 1997 for playing Gymnastics sports. In 1999, he changed to football and started playing as a goalkeeper.[5][6] From 2004, he joined Ministry of Commerce Football Club.

Club career

Ayeyawady United

After Myanmar Football Federation started Myanmar National League in 2009, Sithu joined Delta United FC to start his professional career as the captain. He played for the team the AFC Challenge Cup 2010. He was invited to join by Yangon United FC in 2010 but he rejected and decided to continue playing for Ayeyawady United FC which makes him to be a favorite player of Ayeyawady United FC Fans. He is always found to be very enthusiastic and hardworking whether he is playing in his club or in his National Team.[7] Together with Ayeyawaddy United, he was able to achieve two champions, three 1st runner up prizes with several international appearances in the region.

Yadanarbon

In 2013, he transferred from Ayeyawady United FC to Yadanarbon FC. He played as the captain and contributed the club to win the Champion of Myanmar National League in 2014 and 1st Runner up in 2015.

2020: League champion and retirement

In the beginning of the 2016 transfer window, Thiha Sithu moved to Shan United as the captain again. Sithu helped the club win six champions so far along with two 1st runner up prizes within 4 years as well as Myanmar National League Undefeated Record in 2019. He played for the team the AFC Champions League in 2018 and 2019. He also set the Myanmar National League clean sheet record by not conceding a single goal for 14 matches in 2017.[8][2] In Jan 2021, Thiha Sithu retired and work as Club Manager at Shan United.

International career

With U-14 Myanmar Youth National Team, Sithu started his international debut in 2000. After that, he represented Myanmar Youth National Team U-17 and U-20 in 2005, U-23 from 2009 to 2011 and Myanmar National Football Team from 2010 to 2018. During all of his career with Myanmar, he achieved two Champions for AFF U-20 Youth Championship in 2005, Philippine Peace Cup in 2014, also 1st Runner up for Hassanal Bolkiah Trophy in 2007 and Bronze Medal for U23 SEA Games in 2011. Therefore, he was considered as one of the long time starting goalkeeper in Myanmar.

Outside Football

Aside from his professional player-life, Sithu works on sports education and knowledge experiences sharing to youths with a vision of how sports could impact on the society and next generation in Myanmar. He participated in the events such as ONE Championship ONE:NXT Panel Night,[9] Bar Camp for Youth as not only a motivational speaker but also a professional player. He is also the founder of K1 Football Trainer Center in order to teach football techniques, share experiences and encourage the young generation to be a professional player.

With the outbreak of 2021 Myanmar protests against the earlier coup, he, alongside teammates Kyaw Zin Htet and Maung Maung Lwin, joined the protest movement condemning the military's actions.[10]

References
  1. Football : Thiha Si Thu - AFFSuzuki Cup: Profile
  2. "Myanmar National League". www.facebook.com. Retrieved 2020-06-01.
  3. Myanmar Football Federation on Facebook Watch, retrieved 2020-06-01
  4. Golden Myanmar Soccer 11 on Facebook Watch, retrieved 2020-06-01
  5. ဂၽြမ္းဘားကစားထားတဲ့အတြက္ ဂိုးဖမ္းရတာအရမ္းအဆင္ေျပပါတယ္ဆုိတဲ့ သီဟစည္သူ (Goalkeeper) အပိုင္း - ၁, retrieved 2020-06-01
  6. ဂၽြမ္းဘားကစားရင္းဂိုးသမားျဖစ္လာတဲ့ သီဟစည္သူ, retrieved 2020-06-01
  7. Football : Thiha Si Thu - Footballdatabase.eu
  8. MNL, retrieved 2020-06-01
  9. "ONE:NXT Myanmar Hailed A Rousing Success | ONE Championship - Events". www.onefc.com. Retrieved 2020-06-01.
  10. "Myanmar footballers threaten national team boycott | DW News - latest news and breaking stories | DW | 14.02.2021". www.dw.com. Archived from the original on 2021-02-15.
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