Kambodsja

Beginning of an era

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. 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 the Khmer Rouge.

1990s to 2010s

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 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.

2010s and 2020s

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 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.

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.

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 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.

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 where they faced Equatorial Guinea and Guyana respectively.