Cambodia national football team

Cambodia formed its first national team following the end of French colonization in 1954. Immediately following the end of French colonialism, Cambodia played its first home game against Malaya. The game ended with a 9–2 win for the Malays.

Like most Asian countries at the time, Cambodia did not seek to participate in the FIFA World Cup qualification nor even AFC Asian Cup qualification, as the country was still trying to consolidate its early football development. However, when Lon Nol decided to topple the Cambodian Kingdom and replaced by a Republic, Cambodia finally decided to participate in the 1972 AFC Asian Cup qualification. The Cambodians managed to qualify for the 1972 AFC Asian Cup in its first qualification attempt, a major success up to date. Cambodia managed to win over Hong Kong, which sent the country to Thailand.

In the tournament as Khmer Republic, the Cambodians lost to Iran and had to play in group B along with South Korea and Kuwait. Despite early loss to the South Koreans, they had qualified to the semi-finals thanked for a resounding 4–0 win over Kuwait, only got beaten later by Iran, again, and Thailand, and won the 4th place overall. It remains as Cambodia's greatest achievement in an international tournament.

Following the success, Cambodia could not participate in further tournament, due to the eventual rise of Khmer Rouge.

After decades of war, in which witnessed both Khmer Rouge's genocide and the later Vietnamese invasion which toppled the Khmer Rouge, Cambodia returned to international football at 1993. Cambodia's first tournament as a new team was the Tiger Cup, in which Cambodia was defeated in all four matches. In this tournament, although Cambodia was the weakest among all teams participating in the tournament, Cambodia demonstrated high spirit of football. However, in successive tournaments, Cambodia was not successful and they could not manage to play with high spirits as it used to be. Despite this, Cambodia still gave birth to what would one of Cambodia's football talents in its young history, Hok Sochetra.

Also during this time, Cambodia sent its national team to the 1998 World Cup qualification, the first time Cambodia had ever done so. However, Cambodia had been unsuccessful by large, and often got eliminated in the bottom of their group. The country also withdrew from participating in the 2006 World Cup qualification. Likewise, Cambodia also only participated in the 2000 AFC Asian Cup qualification, before withdrew from 2004 and 2007 qualification attempts. The country later suffered AFF Championship drought, failing to qualify for three consecutive tournaments.

Vichet

Pheng

Visal

Krya

Rosib

Sokumpheak

Suhana

Chanpolin

Udom

Sokpheng

Vathanaka

2018 AFF Championship group stage starting line-up in a 3–1 win against Laos.[6]

Cambodia's football has witnessed resurgence after decades being under shadows. The resurgence of Cambodia had begun with the arrival of South Korea's Lee Tae-hoon, who had introduced a significant development of football in Cambodia, with the change of its tactics, as well as youth development and promotion of Cambodian youngsters to the national team, has given a hope for the change of Cambodia. At this team, the team has a lot of newly young talents, notably Chan Vathanaka, the first ever Cambodian to play professional football outside Cambodia, and the fanbase increased as for the achievement. Cambodia once again demonstrated a full spirit of football, despite during 2018 World Cup qualifying stage, Cambodia didn't record any win at all. Cambodia however missed out the 2012 and 2014 AFC Challenge Cups, thus missed out the 2015 AFC Asian Cup.

During 2019 AFC Asian Cup qualification, Cambodia finished bottom in a group where they suffered losses to Jordan and neighbor Vietnam. Despite this, Cambodia has managed what could be Cambodia's greatest achievement in their qualification history, when they defeated Afghanistan, which ranked 158 that time, above Cambodia which was ranked 174, and had already defeated Cambodia twice in the World Cup qualification, 1–0 at home. It is still regarded to be Cambodia's best performance in its modern football history. It was the country's only win in the qualification.

Following the failure to qualify for the 2019 AFC Asian Cup, Cambodia participated in the 2022 FIFA World Cup qualification, where they had to face Pakistan in the first round. Cambodia comfortably beat Pakistan both games with a 4–1 on aggregate to reach the second round. Once the team had entered this stage again, Cambodia had to deal with much stronger Hong Kong, Iraq, Iran and Bahrain. Despite passionate support from home fans, the country itself could only obtain a 1–1 draw at home to Hong Kong, before getting crushed in the remaining games, including a 0–14 annihilation away by Iran, an Asian football giant, which became Cambodia's heaviest loss in the history.

• Finals Records Only

This competition was also formerly known as the Tiger Cup.

AFF Championship record
Year	Round	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA
1996	Group stage	4	0	0	4	1	12
1998	Did not qualify
2000	Group stage	4	1	0	3	5	10
2002		4	1	0	3	5	18
2004		4	0	0	4	2	22
2007	Did not qualify
2008	Group stage	3	0	0	3	2	12
2010	Did not qualify
2012
2014
2016	Group stage	3	0	0	3	4	8
2018	Group stage	4	1	0	3	4	9
2020	To be determined
Total	Best: Group stage	22	3	0	23	23	91

The following players have also been called up to the Cambodia squad within the last 12 months.

• ^INJ Injured players
• ^PRE Preliminary squad
• ^SUS Suspended from the team
• ^RET Retired players

• Cambodian League
• Cambodian Second League

• Hun Sen Cup - an annual knockout tournament in Cambodian football or commonly known internationally as the FA Cup
• CNCC Charity Cup - an annual match between the Cambodian League and the Hun Sen Cup champions

Men

• Cambodia national under-23 football team
• Cambodia national under-21 football team
• Cambodia national under-17 football team

Women

• Cambodia women's national football team

Futsal

• Cambodia national futsal team