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 The Macau Football Association ( Pinyin: Àomén zúqiú zǒng huì; pt, Associação de Futebol de Macau) is the governing body of association football in Macau, China. History The Hong Kong–Macau Interport tournament, jointly organized by ...

(; 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 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 ...

members. Although usually known as simply ''Macau'', the EAFF refers to the team as ''Macau, China''. The national team has never qualified for the

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 ...

or EAFF East Asian Championship. The team qualified for the

2006 AFC Challenge Cup The 2006 AFC Challenge Cup was held between 1 and 16 April 2006 in Bangladesh. Sixteen teams were split into four groups, the top two in each group qualifying for the quarterfinals, and from then on a straight knockout contest. There was no quali ...

, 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 ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...

. 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 2005 ...

, as the Basic Law and the principle of "

one country, two systems "One country, two systems" is a constitutional principle of the People's Republic of China (PRC) describing the governance of the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau. The constitutional principle was formulated in the early ...

" 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

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 (1996–1998) *

Masataka Imai is a former Japanese football player and manager. Club career Imai was born in Shizuoka on April 2, 1959. After graduating from Kokushikan University, he joined Honda in 1982. He played 115 games in Japan Soccer League. He retired in 1990. Fu ...

(2003–2004) * Masanaga Kageyama (2006–2008) * Leung Sui Wing (2008–2015) * Tam Iao San (2015–2017) *

Chan Hiu Ming Chan Hiu Ming (; born 19 March 1975) is a Hong Kong professional football manager who is currently the head coach of Hong Kong Premier League club Lee Man. He holds an AFC Pro License and is also a coaching and fitness instructor for the As ...

(2017–2018) *

Iong Cho Ieng Iong Cho Ieng (; born 1 September 1973) is a football coach, currently managing Macau. Managerial career In 2005, Iong joined the coaching staff for the Macau national football team. In 2016, Iong was appointed head coach of the Macau's under-18 ...

(2018–2019) * Lázaro Oliveira (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