Thai football is back. Thai League 1 kicked off on 4 September 2026, three weeks later than usual, and the Buriram United 2026/27 season begins in the strangest position a football club can occupy: with almost nothing left to win at home, and everything to lose.
Then, on the eve of the first game, it got stranger still. Buriram parted company with head coach Mark Jackson on Saturday 5 September — twenty-four hours before kick-off, eleven months after he arrived, and one season after he won a treble. The club gave no reason. Portuguese coach Mário Silva was appointed in his place within three days. The full story is below.
Last updated: 12 October 2026
If you only need the facts: Mário Silva is the head coach, appointed on 8 September. Buriram are top of Thai League 1 with ten points from four games — a 3–1 win away at Sukhothai on 6 September, a 1–1 draw at home to Chiangrai United on 11 September, a 1–0 win away at Chonburi on 20 September and a 3–2 win at home to Rayong on 10 October — and opened the Champions League Elite with a 1–1 draw away at Johor Darul Ta’zim on 15 September. The next home game at Chang Arena is Beijing Guoan in the Champions League Elite on Tuesday 13 October, 19:15 Thai time, and the league resumes away at Pattani on 18 October. For the live list all season — fixtures, results and the table, updated automatically — use our Buriram United fixtures page.
What They’re Defending
Last season was the best in the club’s history, and the numbers are worth stating plainly.
Buriram won the 2025/26 Thai League 1 title with four games to spare — their 11th league championship and fifth in a row, a run no other Thai club has managed. They finished on 70 points from 30 games, won 22, and ended +45 on goal difference, ten clear of Port FC.
Then they won the Chang FA Cup (1–0 after extra time against PT Prachuap, a record eighth), and the ASEAN Club Championship (Shopee Cup) for the second year running, beating Selangor 3–1 on aggregate to become the first club ever to retain it. A treble. They also reached the AFC Champions League Elite quarter-finals, going out 3–2 after extra time to Shabab Al Ahli in Jeddah on a 93rd-minute goal.
The full story is in how Buriram United made Thai football history.
What’s Changed in Thai League 1
Four changes shape the Buriram United 2026/27 season.
It started late. The campaign began on 4 September rather than mid-August — a three-week delay to give national-team players more recovery time. It runs to 30 May 2027, across 29 weekend rounds plus a single midweek fixture.
The ASEAN quota is gone. Thai League 1 has abolished the ASEAN player quota, the slot that let clubs register a Southeast Asian player outside the standard foreign allocation. It is the season’s most significant rule change and it affects squad building across the whole league.
Three clubs came up, all debutants. Rasisalai United, Sisaket United and Pattani have all reached the top flight for the first time. Muangthong United, Nakhon Ratchasima and Kanchanaburi Power went down.
New title sponsor. The league runs as the BYD Sealion 6 League One after a deal with the Chinese carmaker.
The opening night showed how far the league has spread beyond Bangkok: newly promoted Pattani drew 0–0 with BG Pathum United in front of 17,300 at the Rainbow Stadium.
Two New Isaan Clubs — and Why That Matters Here
This is the detail the national previews will skip, and the one that matters most if you live in or visit the Northeast.
Both Rasisalai United and Sisaket United are from Sisaket province — immediately east of Surin, which borders Buriram. Two clubs from one Isaan province, both in the top flight for the first time, in the same season.
Top-division football has just become far easier to reach from this part of the country. Rasisalai United play at the Sisaket Provincial Stadium, capacity around 2,500. Sisaket United play at the Sri Nakhon Lamduan Stadium, roughly 9,500. Neither is Chang Arena and neither pretends to be — but a Thai League 1 fixture at a 2,500-capacity provincial ground is a rare thing, and it is a couple of hours’ drive from Buriram rather than a flight to Bangkok.
For the province next door, see our guide to Surin.
The Coach Left the Day Before the Season Started
Buriram United announced on Saturday 5 September 2026 that head coach Mark Jackson had left the club — twenty-four hours before the opening league fixture away at Sukhothai.
The statement was three lines long. It thanked Jackson for his dedication and for what he had won, wished him well, and gave no reason at all. Nothing has been said since by the club or by Jackson beyond a farewell post.
It is hard to overstate how unexpected this was. Jackson, an Englishman from Leeds who arrived in October 2025 from Central Coast Mariners in Australia, had been in the job eleven months. In that time he won the Thai League 1 title, the Chang FA Cup and the ASEAN Club Championship — the treble described above — and reached the AFC Champions League Elite quarter-finals. Thai reports noted he had signed a contract extension running to 2028 not long before.
A word on what we are not saying. Reporting differs on whether Jackson resigned or was dismissed: some outlets called it a resignation, others a parting of ways, one Thai report framed it as the club ending the contract. The club has confirmed neither, so neither will we. What is certain is the date, the fact of the departure, and that no reason has been made public.
Brazilian assistant coach Emerson Pereira da Silva, 53, who has been on the Buriram staff since March 2024, was put in temporary charge and took the team to Sukhothai the next day. Buriram won 3–1.
The new head coach is Mário Silva. Buriram confirmed the appointment of the 49-year-old Portuguese on the club’s own channels, three days after Jackson left, and it was carried across the Thai press on 7–8 September. No contract length has been published.
Silva was born in Porto on 24 April 1977 and played as a left-back. His best years were at FC Porto, as understudy to Nuno Valente in the squads that won the 2002/03 UEFA Cup and the 2003/04 Champions League under José Mourinho, along with two Portuguese league titles. He won a single cap for Portugal, in a 4–1 home defeat by Finland in March 2002, and retired in 2009 after a brief spell in Cyprus.
His managerial record is thinner than his medal collection. He won the 2018/19 UEFA Youth League with Porto’s under-19s — still the only trophy of his coaching career — and has since had short spells at Almería, Rio Ave, Santa Clara and Al-Najma in Saudi Arabia. At Rio Ave he came within a penalty shoot-out of the Europa League group stage, losing 9–8 to AC Milan after conceding in the last minute of extra time. At Al-Najma he won promotion to the Saudi Pro League at the first attempt, then was sacked in February 2026 with the club bottom of it on five points from twenty games. He works with a 4-3-3.
That is, on paper, a striking swap: a coach whose last job ended bottom of the table replacing one who had just won everything available domestically. Silva watched the Sukhothai game from pitchside before the appointment was made public. Whether it reads as a gamble or as a reset should be clear by the spring.
This is a living page. Silva’s appointment is the settled position as of 8 September 2026, and this section will be updated if that changes. For how the season itself is developing, see “How the season is going” further down, which carries its own date.
The Buriram United 2026/27 Season Squad
Silva inherits a squad that has been rebuilt rather than tinkered with, and none of it is his own work.
The recruitment has been strikingly European. In on free transfers: forwards Sebas Moyano (Real Zaragoza), Stefan Schimmer (Heidenheim) and Paulo Henrique (Al Bataeh), midfielder Darlan (Santa Clara), and defenders Nathan Pelae (América Mineiro) and Caju (Spartak Subotica). Singapore international forward Ilhan Fandi arrives on a season-long loan from BG Pathum United. Domestically, Thai international winger Anan Yodsangwal joins from Lamphun Warriors with 163 career appearances and 35 goals behind him.
Out: Juan Ibiza on a season-long loan to Incheon United, Seksan Ratree on loan to Port, and Athit Berg to Lamphun Warriors.
The spine of the treble side — Suphanat Mueanta, Theerathorn Bunmathan, Guilherme Bissoli, Robert Žulj — stays. The volume of arrivals says more about the fixture load ahead than any dissatisfaction with what came before.
Five Competitions
Buriram are entered in five: Thai League 1, the Thai FA Cup, the Thai League Cup, the AFC Champions League Elite and the ASEAN Club Championship.
The Champions League Elite has changed shape. The AFC confirmed in April 2026 that the league stage would expand from 24 teams to 32 — 16 per region — with each club playing eight league-stage matches instead of a four-team group. Buriram were seeded in Pot 1 for the East.
In practice that means more serious European-style midweek nights at Chang Arena than a normal season, against opposition most Thai clubs never host. The pick of the autumn is Beijing Guoan at home on Tuesday 13 October — Chinese Super League opposition in Buriram on a weeknight is about as far from a routine provincial fixture as Thai football gets. Buriram have already made one of those trips — a 1–1 draw away at Johor Darul Ta’zim on 15 September — and go to Shanghai Port on 24 November.
Exact dates and kick-off times for all of it are on the fixtures page, which shows Thai time and updates itself.
Going to a Match
Chang Arena holds 32,600 and the atmosphere is the reason to go — the ultras end sings for ninety minutes and the rest of the ground follows, tickets run from about 100 to 500 baht, and for ordinary league games you can usually buy on the day.
We are not going to repeat the detail here, because it already has a proper home: the complete guide to attending a Buriram United match covers the stands, getting to the ground, food, tickets and what to expect on arrival.
Two things specific to this season, though. Book ahead for the Champions League Elite nights, for Port FC on 6 December and for Bangkok United on Boxing Day — those are the three biggest home occasions before the new year. And if you are pairing a match with the MotoGP round in late February, book much further ahead again; that week is the one time Buriram genuinely fills up. See where to stay for MotoGP.
For a match trip, the Amari Buriram United sits on the same sporting campus as the stadium and is the simplest option if you want to walk to the ground — check availability at Amari Buriram United. City-centre hotels cost less and put you near the night market; check hotel availability in Buriram to compare. Getting here is covered in getting to Buriram, or search trains and buses from Bangkok to Buriram directly.
How the Buriram United 2026/27 Season Is Going
Updated 12 October 2026 — four league rounds and one Champions League Elite night played.
The 3–1 win away at Sukhothai on 6 September, under a caretaker, was followed by a 1–1 draw at home to Chiangrai United on Friday 11 September — Mário Silva’s first match in charge. Guilherme Bissoli put Buriram ahead on 32 minutes and Robinho equalised on 77, in front of 20,385 at Chang Arena. After two rounds that left Buriram fourth on four points, behind Port, Rayong and Ayutthaya United, who had won both of theirs.
Four days later came the Champions League Elite opener away at Johor Darul Ta’zim, the club Buriram knocked out of the Shopee Cup semi-finals in May. Óscar Arribas scored for Johor on 26 minutes and Stefan Schimmer levelled on 43. Kenny Dougall was sent off for a second yellow on 57, so Buriram spent more than half an hour a man down in front of 32,325 — and held on, helped by a missed Bergson penalty on 86 and a Johor red card in stoppage time. 1–1, and a point away from home in the first of eight league-stage games.
Then came the first league win under Silva: 1–0 away at Chonburi on Sunday 20 September, settled in the eighth minute. That put Buriram top of the table on seven points from three games, level with Rayong and ahead of them only on goal difference.
After the international break came the meeting of the top two, Rayong at Chang Arena on Saturday 10 October, and it took until stoppage time to settle. Rayong led twice through Joao Felipe, either side of a Stefan Schimmer equaliser just before half-time, before Felipe was sent off for a second yellow card. Against ten men, Supachai Chaided levelled on 85 minutes and Thanakrit Chotmuangpak won it with a long-range shot in stoppage time: 3–2. Silva said afterwards that his side had more than 70 per cent of the ball and created around 27 chances.
That leaves Buriram top of Thai League 1 on ten points from four games, one point clear of a pack of four on nine: Uthai Thani, Bangkok United, PT Prachuap and Port. Four games is still an early read. Next comes the first Champions League Elite night of the season in Buriram, Beijing Guoan at Chang Arena on Tuesday 13 October, 19:15 Thai time, before the league resumes away at Pattani on 18 October. The live table and every result are on our fixtures page, which updates itself.
What Would Count as a Good Buriram United 2026/27 Season?
Worth being realistic rather than promotional about the Buriram United 2026/27 season.
A sixth consecutive league title would extend a record with no equal in Thai football, and on last season’s evidence Buriram start clear favourites. But the margin was built on consistency rather than invincibility — they lost four league games and drew four — and the squad now faces a heavier fixture list, an expanded eight-game Champions League Elite programme, and a rule change that removes a squad slot every club had been building around.
The honest read: the league is theirs to lose, and the more interesting question is Asia. They have reached a Champions League Elite quarter-final and lost it in the 93rd minute. Eight league-stage games instead of a group of four gives them more room to recover from a bad night — and more chances to be found out.
Retaining the ASEAN Club Championship a third time would be its own piece of history, having already become the first club to retain it at all.
Related Guides
- Buriram United fixtures, results and table — the live list, updated automatically
- The complete Buriram United guide — stadium, tickets, match day
- How Buriram United made Thai football history — the treble season
- Chang International Circuit — the MotoGP track 1.5km away
- What Buriram is actually like — the city and what to expect
- Surin province guide — the province next door
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