Merdeka Tournament or Pestabola Merdeka is a friendly

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly ...

tournament held in

Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federal constitutional monarchy consists of thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two regions: Peninsular Malaysia and Borneo's East Mal ...

to commemorate the Independence Day. The competition bears the Malay word for independence. As of 2022, it has been held 40 times, and decreasingly in recent decades. Matches in Merdeka tournament considered International "A" matches (

Friendly match An exhibition game (also known as a friendly, a scrimmage, a demonstration, a preseason game, a warmup match, or a preparation match, depending at least in part on the sport) is a sporting event whose prize money and impact on the player's or ...

) by

FIFA FIFA (; stands for ''Fédération Internationale de Football Association'' (French), meaning International Association Football Federation ) is the international governing body of association football, beach football and futsal. It was found ...

. Its final has been mainly held at

Stadium Merdeka The Stadium Merdeka (also known as Merdeka Stadium/; English: Independence Stadium) is a stadium based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It is known as the site of the formal declaration of independence of the Federation of Malaya on 31 August 1957. ...

Kuala Lumpur , anthem = ''Maju dan Sejahtera'' , image_map = , map_caption = , pushpin_map = Malaysia#Southeast Asia#Asia , pushpin_map_caption = , coordinates = , sub ...

. An unusual feature is it has four times seen a draw result, twice with the home nation and teams from

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...

, and twice with the latter and variously

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the no ...

and

Myanmar Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...

(then predominantly called Burma). Teams from all continents apart from

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and th ...

have been the runners up or champions.

History

The Pestabola Merdeka is Asia`s oldest football tournament which invited football playing nations to compete since 1957. The Merdeka tournament also was once called the ‘Mini Asia Cup’ around the 1960s to 1980s, which was founded by the former AFC President,

Tunku Abdul Rahman Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra Al-Haj ibni Almarhum Sultan Abdul Hamid Halim Shah ( ms, ‏تونكو عبد الرحمن ڤوترا الحاج ابن سلطان عبد الحميد حليم شاه, label= Jawi, script=arab, italic=unset; 8 Febru ...

. While the tournament had been held annually from 1957 to 1988, it has been held only nine times from 1989 to 2013. During the late 1950s to early 1980s, it was a prestigious tournament among Asian nations because the participants sent their full senior players. After the 1980s, interest in the cup waned from both football fans and football teams, because many Asian nations focused more on the qualification phases in

FIFA World Cup The FIFA World Cup, often simply called the World Cup, is an international association football competition contested by the senior men's national teams of the members of the ' ( FIFA), the sport's global governing body. The tournament has ...

and

AFC Asian Cup The AFC Asian Cup is the primary association football competition contested by the senior men's national teams of the members of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), determining the continental champion of Asia. It is the second oldest cont ...

. The first edition of the Pestabola Merdeka was held in August and September 1957 with

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a List of cities in China, city and Special administrative regions of China, special ...

emerging inaugural champions. However, from then on it was purely dominated by

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Gui ...

and a host of other countries, including

South American South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the southe ...

and

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

an clubs. Malaysia/Malaya exclusively lifted the trophy ten times, emerged runners-up on eight occasions, and in addition shared the winner’s rostrum twice with

(1960 and 1979), while South Korean sides have won it seven times.

and

hold multi-winning accolades. The other champions were

Morocco Morocco (),, ) officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is the westernmost country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to A ...

(1980),

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island coun ...

(2000),

Uzbekistan Uzbekistan (, ; uz, Ozbekiston, italic=yes / , ; russian: Узбекистан), officially the Republic of Uzbekistan ( uz, Ozbekiston Respublikasi, italic=yes / ; russian: Республика Узбекистан), is a doubly landlocked co ...

(2001), Czechoslovakia Olympic (1987) and Austria’s with their SK Admira Wacker (1991), German

Hamburger SV Hamburger Sport-Verein e.V. (), commonly known as Hamburger SV () or Hamburg (), is a German sports club based in Hamburg, with its largest branch being its football section. Though the current HSV was founded in June 1919 from a merger of three ...

(1988), Argentinian

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XI (1983) and Brazilian Santa Catarina XI (1982). Brazilian states' Sao Paulo XI, Minas Gerais XI, and America FC Rio de Janeiro finished runners-up, as have

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the n ...

and

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...

Champions

Below are the list of champions in Pestabola Merdeka competitions since 1957. Note: ¹ All teams participant fielded their strongest side and their match are regarded as full internationals for their association. ² South Korea was represented by a reserve team with some senior players.

Teams' achievements

Below are the record of teams in Pestabola Merdeka competitions (1957–present).

Goalscorers

Overall top scorers

Notable players

Here are some prominent footballers, who participated in this competition. *

Mokhtar Dahari Dato' Mohd Mokhtar bin Dahari (13 November 1953 – 11 July 1991) was a Malaysian football player from Setapak, Kuala Lumpur, he played for F.A. Selangor for most of his life. He is considered a legendary footballer in Malaysian football hi ...

Soh Chin Ann Datuk Wira Soh Chin Ann (or Soh Chin Aun due to misspelling by Malaysian media; ; born 28 July 1950) is a Malaysian former footballer. He was affectionately known as ''Tauke'' or '' Towkay'' ( en, Boss) by his teammates and fans. RSSSF and I ...

Abdul Ghani Minhat Abdul Ghani bin Minhat (Jawi script, Jawi: عبدالغاني منحة; ‎ 23 December 1935 – 28 September 2012) was a Association football, football player who represented the team Selangor FA and Negeri Sembilan FA in the 1950s until th ...

P. K. Banerjee Pradip Kumar Banerjee (23 June 1936 – 20 March 2020) was an Indian professional footballer who played as a striker for the India national football team. He also captained the national team and later on became the coach of the national ...

Chuni Goswami Subimal "Chuni" Goswami (15 January 1938 – 30 April 2020) was an Indian professional footballer and first-class cricketer. As footballer, he played as a striker or winger, captained both the Mohun Bagan club and the Indian national te ...

Kim Jae-han Kim Jae-han (born 1 April 1947) is a former South Korean football player. Early life Kim decided to be a baseball player in Daegu High School, but his baseball team was disbanded while he attended the school. He changed his career path late t ...

* Cha Bum-kun *

Lee Woon-jae Lee Woon-jae (; born 26 April 1973) is a South Korean former football goalkeeper. He was part of South Korea's 1994, 2002, 2006 and 2010 FIFA World Cup campaigns. He was the only Asian player nominated for the IFFHS World's Best Goalkeeper of ...

Kunishige Kamamoto is a former Japanese football player, manager and politician. He won the bronze medal with the Japan national team at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, finishing as the tournament's top scorer with seven goals, and is the all-time lead ...

Yasuhiko Okudera is a Japanese former football player and manager. He is the president of J2 League club Yokohama FC and was formerly the president of English club Plymouth Argyle. Okudera was the first Japanese footballer to play professionally in Europe, as we ...

* Abdul Kadir *

Suk Bahadur Suk Bahadur Thapa ( my, ဆွတ်ဗဟာဒူး) is a Burmese footballer who served as the major for 4th Infantry Battalion (4th Gurkha) of Myanmar Army. He was also a dominating tennis and field hockey player as well as the national 10 ...

Hussein Saeed Hussein Saeed Mohammed ( ar, حسين سعيد محمد, born 21 January 1958) is an Iraqi former footballer who played as a forward for the Iraqi Premier League club Al-Talaba and the Iraqi national team and is a former president of the Iraq ...

Abedi Pele Abedi Ayew ( ; born 5 November 1964), known professionally as Abedi Pele, is a Ghanaian former professional footballer who played as an attacking midfielder and who served as captain of the Ghana national team. He is regarded as one of the gr ...

* Jakob Kjeldbjerg *

Jacob Laursen Jacob Thaysen-Laursen (born 6 October 1971) is a Danish former professional footballer who played as a defender. Laursen most notably played for English club Derby County and won the Danish Superliga championship with Silkeborg IF and Copenhag ...

Ryan Nelsen Ryan William Nelsen (born 18 October 1977) is a former New Zealand professional football player and former head coach of Major League Soccer side Toronto FC. Nelsen commonly played as a defender, and his professional career began in 1995. He ...

Notes

References

{{Friendly association football tournaments in Asia International association football competitions hosted by Malaysia Recurring sporting events established in 1957 Recurring sporting events disestablished in 2013 1957 establishments in Malaya 2013 disestablishments in Malaysia