Timor-Leste national football team

Football was established in Timor-Leste during the Portuguese colonial era, when many of the locals and the Portuguese officials played amateur football. After Portugal ended its colonial rule, Indonesia invaded and occupied the island. East Timor eventually gained independence from Indonesia in 2000, which resulted in a long running battle against Jakarta-led forces.

The East Timor Football Association was accepted as an associate member of AFC at the 20th AFC Congress in 2002. Their international debut came in March 2003 when they participated in the qualifying campaign for the 2004 AFC Asian Cup in China. Given their history, it was no surprise that they crashed out with defeats against the likes of Sri Lanka and Chinese Taipei. They entered the regional competition for the first time in 2004 as they played in the ASEAN Football Federation Championship (previously known as Tiger Cup) as an invited member. They finished in last place, showing that they had a long way to go before they could compete even on the regional stage.

They again had no success in the qualifying round of the 2007 AFF Championship, with four heavy losses, including a 7–0 trouncing by the Philippines. In the third qualifying round for the 2008 AFF Championship, they surprisingly drew against Cambodia; this feat was reported in international news.

In the ninth AFF Suzuki Cup, the country's football federation (FFTL) reportedly selected their foreign based players, who played in Brazil, Portugal, Australia and elsewhere, to fortify the team as they also did at the 2011 SEA Games.[7]

On 5 October 2012, Timor-Leste won their first international match in a 5–1 victory against Cambodia.[8] On 9 October 2012, the team won another match against Laos at AFF Suzuki Cup qualifier. Murilo de Almeida score the penalty at 43 minutes of the first half of the match. Later Adelino Trindade extended the Timorese advantage with a header early in the second half and then Alan Leandro added the third goal on the 83rd minute.[9] After winning the second match against Laos, Emerson Alcântara stated "This is a win for the people of Timor Leste. They had to wait a long time for our team to win their first match in this competition but now we have two wins and this was an important victory for Timor Leste. "I think that about 70 percent of people in Timor Leste are poor so it is very important to get this result for them because they love football and the people can get confidence and take pride in this result. It is very important for us to motivate our people and to help to change their lives."[10]

In 2018 FIFA World Cup qualification of Asian zone, Timor-Leste wrote history for being the first country to win 4–1 over Mongolia.

Since 2012 several Brazilian-born footballers, who are not of East Timorese descent and had not necessarily played in the East Timorese League, were expressly naturalised to raise the level of "Sol Nascente".[11]

The country's recent history of naturalizing foreign players, mainly from Brazil such as Murilo de Almeida, Fellipe Bertoldo, and Diogo Santos Rangel has been criticized by many, including native East Timorese players and fans.[12][13]

In a match on 8 October 2015 against Palestine seven of the starting eleven for the Timorese line-up were naturalized Brazilians.[14] Following the match the Palestinian Football Association made a complaint to FIFA stating that the naturalized Timorese players were not eligible to represent Timor-Leste under FIFA rules.[15][16]

Following a concern from some Timorese who complained to the prime minister, the prosecutor general and the minister for justice regarding the naturalisation program, Timor Leste Football Federation (FFTL) decided to drop their oversea-born legion. It meant Timor Leste would be without seven naturalised Brazilian players for the 2018 FIFA World Cup and 2019 AFC Asian Cup joint qualifiers match against United Arab Emirates on 12 November 2015.[17] In that match coach Fernando Alcântara played an all national line up including six who were under twenty, including Ervino Soares who was 16. Timor Leste ended up losing the match 8–0. Alcântara took responsibility for the defeat although he also added that he had been forced to play such an inexperienced line-up by the FFTL.[18]

The next match, Timor-Leste did even worse, suffering a record 0–10 home defeat to a strong Saudi Arabia side, who eventually qualified for the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia.

Jesse Pinto, an Australian-Timorese footballer, told reporters that the FFTL gives Brazilian players Timorese passports so that they can be registered as "Asian" players and meet the quotas of teams. Pinto also added that the FFTL often takes advantage of players from poor backgrounds, but that it often did not meet its promises of allowing players to travel back to Brazil to meet their families.[19]

In December 2016, the FFTL was charged with using forged and falsified documents, fielding ineligible players and bringing the game into disrepute.[20]

A decision was made on the 20 January 2017 that Timor-Leste is barred from participating in the qualification tournament for the 2023 AFC Asian Cup after being found to have fielded a total of twelve ineligible players in 2019 AFC Asian Cup qualification matches and among other competitions.[21]

As of match against  Malaysia on 11 June 2019.

Youngest debut record

#	Player	Age	Debut date	Opponent	Tournament
1.	Ade	15 years, 172 days	21 November 2010	Indonesia	Friendly Match
2.	Anggisu Barbosa	15 years, 217 days	19 October 2008	Cambodia	2008 AFF Suzuki Cup qualification
3.	Nelson Sing	15 years, 225 days	21 November 2010	Indonesia	Friendly Match
4.	Olegario	16 years, 28 days	21 November 2010	Indonesia	Friendly Match
5.	Gumario	16 years, 47 days	4 December 2017	Chinese Taipei	2017 CTFA International Tournament
6.	José Fonseca	16 years, 63 days	21 November 2010	Indonesia	Friendly Match
7.	Nelson	16 years, 157 days	29 May 2016	Cambodia	Friendly Match
8.	Adi	16 years, 164 days	21 March 2003	Sri Lanka	2004 AFC Asian Cup qualification
=	Efrem Almeida	16 years, 164 days	21 November 2010	Indonesia	Friendly Match
10.	Ervino	16 years, 166 days	12 November 2015	United Arab Emirates	2018 FIFA World Cup qualification (AFC)

As of June 2019

Position	Name
Manager	Gaspar Quintao da Silva
Assistant Manager	Jose Carlos da Fonseca
Head Coach	Norio Tsukitate
Assistant Coach	Eduardo Pereira
Goalkeeping Coach	Juliao Monteiro
Physiotherapist	Richa Arun Kulkarni
Media Officer	Zelfa Beatvi Borges Soares
Administrator	Frederico Pereira Martins
Official	Joao Pedro Ribeiro
Kitman	Mateus de Oliveira Soares

As of 11 June 2019

Manager	Period	Internationals					Competitions
		G	W	D	L	%
José Luís	2004–2006	10	0	0	10	000.0	2004 AFF Championship – Group stage 2006 Lusophony Games – Group stage
João Paulo Pereira	2007	2	0	0	2	000.0
Pedro Correia de Almeida	2007–2008	5	0	1	4	000.0
Clodoaldo	2010	3	0	0	3	000.0
Antonio Carlos Vieira	2011–2012	6	1	1	4	016.7
Emerson Alcântara	2012–2014	4	2	0	2	050.0
Manuel da Costa Soares	2015	1	1	0	0	100.0
Fábio Magrão	2015–2016	3	1	2		033.3	2016 AFC Solidarity Cup – Group stage
Fernando Alcântara	2015–2016	6	0	1	5	000.0
Simón Elissetche[28]	2017–2018	3	1	0	2	033.3	2017 CTFA Tournament – Third place
Norio Tsukitate	2018–	9	1	1	7	011.1	2018 AFF Championship – Group stage 2022 FIFA World Cup qualification – Did not qualify

Coaches in Italics were hired as caretakers

• Timor-Leste national football team records and statistics

• Profile at FIFA.com
• Profile at the-AFC.com
• Profile at AFF Suzuki Cup Site
• Profile at AFF Site
• Timor-Leste at National-Football-Teams.com
• 2012 AFF Suzuki Cup squad
• Timor-Leste national football team at Soccerway