Pestabola Merdeka

The winner of the second season of Merdeka Cup in 1958, Malaya football team, five years before the merger to form Malaysia. Also in the picture is Tunku Abdul Rahman (centre), the first Prime Minister of Malaya, and at that time president of Football Association of Malaya.

The Pestabola Merdeka is Asia`s oldest football tournament which invited football playing nations to compete since 1957.[1][2][3] While the tournament had been held annually from 1957 to 1988, it has been held only nine times from 1989 to 2013. During the late 1950s to early 1980s, it was a prestigious tournament among Asian nations because the participants sent their full senior players.[4] After the 1980s, interest in the cup waned from both football fans and football teams, because many Asian nations focused more on the qualification phases in FIFA World Cup and AFC Asian Cup.

The first edition of the Pestabola Merdeka was held in August and September 1957 with Hong Kong emerging inaugural champions.[5] However, from then on it was purely dominated by Malaysia, South Korea, Myanmar, Indonesia and a host of other countries, including South American and European clubs.

Malaysia lifted the trophy nine times since 1958, emerged runners-up on eight occasions, and shared the winner’s rostrum twice with South Korea (1960 and 1979), while the Koreans won it seven times. Indonesia, Taiwan and Myanmar also had their fair share of the accolades. The other champions were Morocco (1980), New Zealand (2000), Uzbekistan (2001), Czechoslovakia Olympic football team (1987) and also Austria’s with their represented SK Admira Wacker (1991), German club-Hamburger SV (1988), Argentina states-Buenos Aires XI (1983) and Brazil states-Santa Catarina XI (1982). While Brazilian states – Sao Paulo XI, Minas Gerais XI, and America FC Rio de Janeiro finished runners-up together with Japan and India in the 60 years history of the tournament.

Below are the list of champions in Pestabola Merdeka competitions since 1957.[6]

Year	Champions	Runners-up	Score in final	Notes
1957	Hong Kong League XI[note 1]	Indonesia		(tournament in group stages)1
1958	Malaya	Hong Kong League XI[note 1]
1959	Malaya[7]	India
1960	Malaya[8]  South Korea[note 2]		0–0	(trophy shared)1
1961	Indonesia	Malaya	2–1	1
1962	Indonesia	Pakistan	2–1	1
1963	Taiwan[note 1]	Japan		(tournament in group stages)1
1964	Burma	India	1–0	1
1965	South Korea  Taiwan[note 1]		1–1	(trophy shared)1
1966	South Vietnam	Burma	1–0	1
1967	Yangzee  Burma		0–0	(trophy shared)1
1968	Malaysia	Burma	3–0
1969	Indonesia	Malaysia	3–2
1970	South Korea	Burma	1–0
1971	Burma	Indonesia	1–0	1
1972	South Korea	Malaysia	2–1
1973	Malaysia	Kuwait[9]	3–1	1
1974	Malaysia	South Korea[note 3]	1–0	1
1975	South Korea	Malaysia[10]	1–0	1
1976	Malaysia	Japan[note 4]	2–0	1
1977	South Korea	Iraq	1–0
1978	South Korea	Iraq	2–0	1
1979	South Korea B  Malaysia		0–0	(trophy shared)
1980	Morocco	Malaysia	2–1	1
1981	Iraq	Sao Paulo XI	1–0
1982	Santa Catarina XI	Ghana	3–0
1983	Buenos Aires XI	Algeria XI	2–1
1984	South Korea B	Minas Gerais XI	2–0
1985	South Korea B	America FC Rio de Janeiro	7–4 (a.e.t)
1986	Malaysia	Czechoslovakia XI	3–0
1987	Czechoslovakia Olympic	South Korea	3–2
1988	Hamburger SV (West Germany)	FC Tirol Innsbruck	1–0
1989–1990	(Not Held)
1991	SK Admira Wacker	China Olympic Team	3–0
1992	(Not Held)
1993	Malaysia	South Korea B	3–1
1994	(Not Held)
1995	Iraq	Budapesti Vasas SC	2–0
1996–1999	(Not Held)
2000	New Zealand	Malaysia	2–0
2001	Uzbekistan	Bosnia and Herzegovina	2–1
2002–2005	(Not Held)
2006	Myanmar	Indonesia	2–1
2007	Malaysia U-23	Myanmar	3–1
2008	Vietnam U-22	Malaysia	0–0	(Penalties) 6–5
2009–2012	(Not Held)
2013	Malaysia U-23	Myanmar U-23	2–0
2014–2020	(Not Held)

Note: ¹ All teams participant fielded their strongest side and their match are regarded as full internationals for their association. ² South Korea was represented by a reserve team with some senior players.

Below are the record of teams in Pestabola Merdeka competitions (1957–present).

#	Teams	Champions	Runners-up	Trophy shared	Total
1	Malaysia (including Malaya)	10	7	2	17
2	South Korea	7	2	2	9
3	Myanmar/Burma	3	4	1	7
4	Indonesia	3	4	-	7
5	Iraq	2	2	-	4
6	South Korea B	3	1	1	4
7	Vietnam (including  South Vietnam)	2	-	-	2
8	Malaysia U-23	2	-	-	2
9	Czechoslovakia	1	1	-	2
10	Taiwan[note 1]	1	-	1	2
11	SK Admira Wacker	1	-	-	1
11	Buenos Aires XI	1	-	-	1
11	Hamburger SV	1	-	-	1
11	Hong Kong League XI[note 1]	1	-	-	1
11	Morocco	1	-	-	1
11	New Zealand	1	-	-	1
11	Santa Catarina XI	1	-	-	1
11	Uzbekistan	1	-	-	1
11	Yangzee	1	-	-	1
12	India	-	2	-	(2)
12	Pakistan		1|-	-	(1)
13	Japan	-	2	-	(1)
13	Kuwait	-	1	-	(1)
13	Sao Paulo XI	-	1	-	(1)
13	Ghana	-	1	-	(1)
13	Algeria	-	1	-	(1)
13	Minas Gerais XI	-	1	-	(1)
13	América FC Rio de Janeiro	-	1	-	(1)
13	FC Tirol Innsbruck	-	1	-	(1)
13	China Olympic Team	-	1	-	(1)
13	Budapesti Vasas SC	-	1	-	(1)
13	Bosnia and Herzegovina	-	1	-	(1)
13	Myanmar U-23	-	1	-	(1)

• Stadium Merdeka