The Macau national football team (; pt, Selecção Macaense de Futebol) represents the Chinese special administrative region of

Macau Macau or Macao (; ; ; ), officially the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (MSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China in the western Pearl River Delta by the South China Sea. With a pop ...

in international association football. The team is supervised by the Macau Football Association (; Portuguese: ''Associação de Futebol de Macau''). The Macau football team has a

ranking A ranking is a relationship between a set of items such that, for any two items, the first is either "ranked higher than", "ranked lower than" or "ranked equal to" the second. In mathematics, this is known as a weak order or total preorder of o ...

that is one of the lowest among the FIFA members. Although usually known as simply ''Macau'', the

EAFF The East Asian Football Federation (EAFF), founded on 28 May 2002, is an international governing body of association football in East Asia. History Competitions Current title holders Presidents Member associations EAFF has 10 member a ...

refers to the team as ''Macau, China''. The national team has never qualified for the AFC Asian Cup or

EAFF East Asian Championship EAFF E-1 Football Championship, known as the East Asian Football Championship from 2003 to 2010, and the EAFF East Asian Cup for the 2013 and 2015 editions, is a men's international football competition in East Asia for member nations of the East ...

. The team qualified for the 2006 AFC Challenge Cup, where they got one draw and two losses. The team had been representing

in international football events before 1999 when Macau was a

dependent territory A dependent territory, dependent area, or dependency (sometimes referred as an external territory) is a territory that does not possess full political independence or sovereignty as a sovereign state, yet remains politically outside the controlli ...

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, In recognized minority languages of Portugal: :* mwl, República Pertuesa is a country located on the Iberian Peninsula, in Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Macaronesian ...

. It continues to represent Macau even after Macau was handed over to the People's Republic of China by Portugal and became a special administrative region of China in 1999. This team is separate from the

China national football team The China national football team (, recognised as China PR by FIFA) represents the People's Republic of China in international association football and is governed by the Chinese Football Association. China won the EAFF East Asian Cup in 2 ...

, as the Basic Law and the principle of " one country, two systems" allows Macau to maintain its own representative teams in international sports competitions. In Macau, the Macau football team is colloquially referred to as the "Macau team" ( zh, c=澳門隊, labels=no), while the Chinese national team is referred to as the "national team" ( zh, c=國家隊, labels=no).

FIFA suspension

In 2005 Macau was temporarily barred by FIFA from entering any international matches because of alleged undue influence of the government in forming the committee of its football association. The suspension was lifted after rectification by Macau.

Recent results and fixtures

2023

Coaching staff

Coaching history

João dos Santos João dos Santos (Évora – Goa, 1622) was a Portuguese Dominican missionary in India and Africa. Life On 13 August 1586, four months after leaving Lisbon, Santos arrived in Portuguese Mozambique. He was at once sent to Sofala, where h ...

(1996–1998) * Masataka Imai (2003–2004) *

Masanaga Kageyama is a Japanese former footballer and manager. Playing career Kageyama was born in Iwaki on May 23, 1967. After graduating from University of Tsukuba, he joined Furukawa Electric (later ''JEF United Ichihara'') in 1990. He became a regular playe ...

(2006–2008) *

Leung Sui Wing Leung Sui Wing (; born 22 May 1958) is a former Hong Kong professional football player who played as a sweeper. Club career He spent his entire career with Happy Valley. He was the Hong Kong Footballer of the Year in 1983 and 1986. Internatio ...

(2008–2015) *

Tam Iao San Tam Iao San (; born 25 October 1976) is a football coach, currently managing Monte Carlo. Playing career Tam moved to Macau aged seven. At club level, Tam played for Lam Pak, Artilheiros, Monte Carlo and Heng Tai. Internationally, Tam made sev ...

(2015–2017) * Chan Hiu Ming (2017–2018) * Iong Cho Ieng (2018–2019) *

Lázaro Oliveira Lázaro Fonseca Costa Oliveira (born 27 August 1967), known simply as Lázaro in his playing days, is an Angolan retired footballer who played as a central midfielder, and the current manager for Macau national football team. Playing career Lá ...

(2020–present)

Players

Current squad

The following 23 players have been selected to the final squad for the 2022 FIFA World Cup qualification matches against

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...

on 6 June 2019 and 11 June 2019. ''Caps and goals correct as of 6 June 2019, after the match against

FIFA suspension

Recent results and fixtures

2023

Coaching staff

Coaching history

Players

Current squad

Recent call-ups

Records

Most appearances

Top goalscorers

Competition records

World Cup record

AFC Asian Cup

East Asian Cup record

AFC Challenge Cup record

AFC Solidarity Cup record

References