Cambodia national football team

The Cambodia national football team (Khmer: ក្រុមបាល់ទាត់ជម្រើសជាតិកម្ពុជា, Krŏm Băltoăt Chômreus Chéatĕ Kâmpŭchéa) is the men's national football team that represents Cambodia in association football. It is affiliated with the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) and the regional ASEAN Football Federation (AFF). The team was founded in 1954 and is administered by the Football Federation of Cambodia (FFC).^[7]

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 in 1956.^[8] The game ended with a 9–2 win for the Malayans.^[9]

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.^[10]

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.^[11][12]

Following the success, Cambodia could not participate in further tournaments, due to the eventual rise of the 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 in 1993. Cambodia's first tournament as a new team was the 1996 AFF Championship, 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.^[13][14]

Also during this time, Cambodia sent its national team to the 1998 FIFA 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 FIFA 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.^[15]

Cambodia's football has witnessed resurgence after decades being under shadows. The resurgence of Cambodia had begun with the arrival of South Korean Lee Tae-hoon, who had introduced a significant development of football in the country, with the change of its tactics, as well as youth development and promotion of Cambodian youngsters to the national team, has given hopes of change. At this team, the team has a lot of 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 the 2018 FIFA World Cup qualifying stage, they didn't win and also missed out the 2012 and 2014 AFC Challenge Cups, thus missing out in the 2015 AFC Asian Cup.^[17]

During 2019 AFC Asian Cup qualification, Cambodia finished bottom in a group where they suffered losses to Jordan and neighbour Vietnam. Despite this, Cambodia has managed what could be the country's greatest achievement in their qualification history, when they defeated Afghanistan, ranked 158 in that time, above Cambodia which was ranked 174, and had already defeated Cambodia twice in the World Cup qualification, 1–0 at home. It was the country's only win in the qualification and is still regarded to be Cambodia's best performance in its modern football history.^[18]

Following its failure to qualify for the 2019 AFC Asian Cup, Cambodia participated in the 2022 FIFA World Cup qualification first round where it beat Pakistan 4–1 on aggregate over two legs to reach the second round^[19] being drawn with Hong Kong, Bahrain, Iraq and Iran. On 5 September 2019 in the first fixture, Cambodia obtained a 1–1 draw at home to Hong Kong, 5 days later, it lost against Bahrain 1–0.

In August 2020, Félix Dalmás left their post after completing their contract while on 7 April 2021, fellow countrymen, Ryu Hirose was unveiled as the new head coach of the Cambodia taking the team whenever manager Keisuke Honda is unavailable. Hirose task is to guide Cambodia for the remaining matches of the second round qualifiers of the FIFA 2022 World Cup qualification. Cambodia went on to undergo 2 defeats to Iran, their worst ever defeat, 14–0 on 10 October 2019 and then 10–0 on 11 June 2021 seeing Cambodia picking up a solitary point in its group.^[20][21]

Honda and Hirose would left the national team following 2022 AFF Championship exit. Dalmás would be re-appointed again as the head coach. On the first round of 2026 FIFA World Cup qualification, Cambodia were drawn against Pakistan again like in the previous qualification. However Cambodia failed to qualify to the second round this time, as they were defeated 1–0 on aggregate.

In 2024, FIFA invited Cambodia to the 2024 FIFA Series tournament held in Jeddah where they faced CAF continent Equatorial Guinea and CONCACAF continent Guyana but lost 2–0 and 4–1 respectively.

Cambodia was then placed in the 2027 AFC Asian Cup qualification play-off round where they would face Sri Lanka in September 2024. Unfortunately Cambodia lost to Sri Lanka in a penalty shoot-out.

From 2010 to 2022, the home kit was a blue and black shirt with black shorts and blue socks; while the original away kit was all white with a series of horizontal red stripes on the shirt. FBT sponsored this version of the kit.^[22]

On May 27, 2022, the team announced its new kit collection. The Khmer sportswear company, Varaman established in February 2022 sponsored them with designs by HCD football agency Clan United. The designs are based upon the flag of Cambodia, with the blue and red tones from the flag featured along with a pattern made from pixelated images of Angkor Wat. The 2022 home shirt uses a 3 toned blue digital camouflage design. The away shirt is all white fabric, with a zoomed in section of the pattern decorated in faint blue and red tones whilst being separated by patterns and shapes. To match each set, the goalkeeper kits are red and blue for home and away respectively. The repeated element is "slightly off-coloured" from the base fabric. The training kits are blue, red, and white with a graffiti styled pattern on each.^[23]

Cambodia's home stadium is the Morodok Techo National Stadium with a capacity of 75,000, and associated facilities, was anticipated to be used to facilitate international friendly matches and regional qualifiers which was opened in August 2021 while their former home ground, the National Olympic Stadium will be second in line to host international matches.^[24][25][26]

The following is a list of match results in the last 12 months, and future matches that have been scheduled.

  Win   Draw   Loss   Fixture

Notes

• ¹ Non FIFA 'A' international match

Updated 13 November 2025, after the match against Hong Kong.

The following 23 players were called up for friendly match against Hong Kong on 13 November 2025.

Caps and goals are correct as of 13 November 2025, after the match against Hong Kong.

The following players have been called up within the last 12 months.

As of 25 March 2025^[32]

Players in bold are still active with Cambodia.

Last match updated was against Hong Kong on 13 November 2025.^[33][34]

Including results from the Khmer Republic.

• Korea Cup (1): 1973
• South Vietnam Independence Cup (1): 1972

• Cambodian Premier League
• Cambodian League 2

• Hun Sen Cup
• Cambodian League Cup
• Cambodian Super Cup

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

• Football in Cambodia
• Cambodian Football Federation

• FIFA profile
• ELO records