The Vietnam national football team () represents Vietnam in men's international football competitions and is controlled by the Vietnam Football Federation, the governing body of football in Vietnam. It has been nicknamed Golden Star Warriors.
Vietnam was introduced to football by the French in the 19th century during the French colonial period. However, various conflicts occurred in the country throughout the 20th century. Vietnam was split into Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North) and Republic of Vietnam (South) in 1954, two national teams which existed simultaneously and were controlled by separate governing bodies. After the country was unified in 1976, the separate governing bodies were combined and renamed to Vietnam Football Federation.
Since the 1990s, Vietnam has re-integrated into global football, achieving moderate success in Southeast Asia and reaching the final round of the World Cup qualification in 2022. Vietnam also reached the quarter-finals of the AFC Asian Cup twice, in 2007 and in 2019.
History
Early history (1896–1954)
The introduction of football into Vietnam traced its roots in 1896, during the era of colonial French Cochinchina. At the early stage, the sport were only played among French civil servants, merchants, and soldiers. The French then encouraged local Vietnamese to play football and other sports that were introduced to them in order to divert their interest from politics, resulting in football being spread to the northern and central region. On 20 July 1908, the newspaper Southern Luc Tan Van reported the match between two local Vietnamese teams for the first time. A football guidebook published in 1925 by Vietnamese doctor Pham Van Tiec attracted the interest among Vietnamese youngsters. By 1928, the Vietnamese had established the Annamite Sports Bureau and in the same year they sent a football team to compete in Singapore. More local football clubs then established in both northern and southern Vietnam. However, it was not until after the World War II that football clubs in the region started to become more organized. Vietnam played their first ever international match in a 2-4 loss against South Korea in Saigon.
Two Vietnam national teams (1954–1976)
Two national football teams existed when Vietnam was divided into South Vietnam and North Vietnam. The southern team participated in the first two AFC Asian Cup finals (1956 AFC Asian Cup and 1960 AFC Asian Cup) and earned two fourth-place finishes. They won the first Southeast Asian Games gold in 1959 in Thailand. The team also participated in the qualification for the 1974 FIFA World Cup, beating Thailand 1–0 to qualify the classification matches. They ultimately lost their group opening matches by 0–4 to Japan and 0–1 to Hong Kong. The team played their last game in a 0-3 loss against Malaysia in 1975. Meanwhile, the northern team was less active. They were not a member of either AFC or FIFA, but they often played against other communist states between 1956 and 1966. Their first game was a 3-5 loss against China PR under head coach Truong Tan Buu. They participated in the first GANEFO (Games of the New Emerging Forces) competitions at Indonesia in 1962 and Cambodia in 1966. Both teams ceased to exist when the North and South regions reunited into the Socialist Republic of Vietnam following the end of the Vietnam War. However, North Vietnam did not become a member of AFC and FIFA until 1976. Because both of them were members of FIFA (South from 1954 and North from 1964), the later unified Vietnam team is classified as the successor of them both by FIFA.
The development of football during this era for both Vietnams was marked with stagnation as the Vietnam War occurred at the same time. Because of the war, Vietnam, by then, a major football force in Asia, started losing its reputation. Thus, the conflict had greatly reduced Vietnamese footballing ability and weakened the country seriously. However, the following Cambodian–Vietnamese War and Sino-Vietnamese War, and global sanctions against the country, had depleted the nation's football team and turned Vietnam into one of the weakest teams in the world and Asia overall. For this reason, Vietnamese football can be still considered new and unknown for the rest of the world, in spite of its long standing history as Vietnam only rejoined global football in 1991.