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 againstMalaya 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 theFIFA World Cup qualification nor evenAFC Asian Cup qualification, as the country was still trying to consolidate its early football development. However, whenLon Nol decided to topple the Cambodian Kingdom and replaced by aRepublic, Cambodia finally decided to participate in the1972 AFC Asian Cup qualification. The Cambodians managed to qualify for the1972 AFC Asian Cup in its first qualification attempt, a major success up to date. Cambodia managed to win overHong Kong, which sent the country to Thailand.[10]
In the tournament as Khmer Republic, the Cambodians lost toIran and had to play in group B along withSouth Korea andKuwait. 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, andThailand, 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 theKhmer Rouge.
After decades of war, in which witnessed bothKhmer Rouge's genocide and the laterVietnamese invasion which toppled the Khmer Rouge, Cambodia returned to international football in 1993. Cambodia's first tournament as a new team was the1996 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 the1998 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 the2006 FIFA World Cup qualification. Likewise, Cambodia also only participated in the2000 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 starting line-up in the 3–1 win against Laos at the2018 AFF Championship group stage.[16]
Sou Yaty played 37 games for Cambodia in the 2010s
Cambodia's football has witnessed resurgence after decades being under shadows. The resurgence of Cambodia had begun with the arrival ofSouth KoreanLee 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, notablyChan 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 the2018 FIFA World Cup qualifying stage, they didn't win and also missed out the2012 and2014 AFC Challenge Cups, thus missing out in the2015 AFC Asian Cup.[17]
During2019 AFC Asian Cup qualification, Cambodia finished bottom in a group where they suffered losses toJordan and neighbourVietnam. Despite this, Cambodia has managed what could be the country's greatest achievement in their qualification history, when they defeatedAfghanistan, 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]
Keisuke Honda served as Cambodia's head coach from 2018 to 2023.
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 managerKeisuke 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 following2022 AFF Championship exit. Dalmás would be re-appointed again as the head coach. On thefirst 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.
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 theMorodok Techo National Stadium with a capacity of 75,000, and associated facilities, was anticipated to be used to facilitate internationalfriendly matches and regional qualifiers which was opened in August 2021 while their former home ground, theNational Olympic Stadium will be second in line to host international matches.[24][25][26]
INJ Withdrew due to injury PRE Preliminary squad / standby RET Retired from the national team SUS Serving suspension WD Withdrew due to non-injury issue.