Merdeka Tournament
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Merdeka Tournament (Template:Langx) is an international friendly football tournament held in Malaysia to commemorate the Independence Day. It is mainly played at Independence Stadium, in Kuala Lumpur.[1] "Merdeka" is the Malay word for independence. As of 2023, the tournament has been held 42 times, though with decreasing frequency in recent decades.
The Merdeka Tournament is the oldest invitational football tournament in Asia, and the matches in the tournament are considered International "A" matches (Friendly match) by FIFA.[2]
History
The Merdeka Tournament is Asia`s oldest football tournament which invited football playing nations to compete since 1957.[5][6][7][8] The 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.[9][10] At that time, the FIFA president, Sir Stanley Rous, was just as surprised that newly independent Asian country could successfully organize a football tournament where all expenses of the visiting teams were fully borne by the host.[11] The Merdeka Tournament proved to be a huge success, inspiring similar tournaments like the Jakarta Anniversary Tournament in Indonesia, the King's Cup in Thailand and the President's Cup in South Korea.[12] While the tournament had been held annually from 1957 to 1988, it has been held only ten times from 1989 to 2023. During the late 1950s to early 1980s, it was a prestigious tournament among Asian nations because the participants sent their full senior players.[13] 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 the FIFA World Cup and AFC Asian Cup.[14]
The first edition of the tournament was held in August and September 1957 with British Hong Kong emerging inaugural champions.[15] However, from then on it was purely dominated by Malaysia, South Korea, Myanmar, Indonesia and a host of other countries, including South American and European clubs.[16]
Malaysia/Malaya exclusively lifted the trophy ten times, emerged runners-up on eight occasions, and in addition shared the winner’s rostrum twice with South Korea (1960 and 1979), while South Korean sides have won it seven times.
Indonesia, Taiwan and Myanmar hold multi-winning accolades. The other champions were Morocco (1980), New Zealand (2000), Uzbekistan (2001), Czechoslovakia Olympic (1987) and Austria’s with their SK Admira Wacker (1991), German Hamburger SV (1988), Argentinian Buenos Aires XI (1983) and Brazilian Santa Catarina XI (1982).
Brazilian states' São Paulo XI, Minas Gerais XI, and America FC Rio de Janeiro finished runners-up, as have Japan and India.
The 2024 Merdeka Tournament would be held in September 2024. Three countries will be invited to the tournament, from Kim Pan-gon's decision. The tournament uses the same format as the 2023 edition, where higher-ranked teams received a bye in the semi-final, and only waiting in the finals.[17]
List of finals
Below are the list of Merdeka Football Tournament finals since 1957.[18][19]
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Records and statistics
Performance by nations
Below are the records of national teams (including youth teams) since 1957.
Performance by state or club teams
Below are the records of state or clubteams since 1957.
| # | Team | Script error: No such module "sort". Titles | Script error: No such module "sort". Runners-up | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Template:No bold | Template:Flagicon Santa Catarina XI | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Template:Flagicon Buenos Aires XI | 1 | 0 | 1 | |
| Template:Flagicon Hamburger SV | 1 | 0 | 1 | |
| Template:Flagicon SK Admira Wacker | 1 | 0 | 1 | |
| Template:No bold | Template:Flagicon São Paulo XI | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Template:Flagicon Minas Gerais XI | 0 | 1 | 1 | |
| Template:Flagicon America FC Rio de Janeiro | 0 | 1 | 1 | |
| Template:Flagicon FC Tirol Innsbruck | 0 | 1 | 1 | |
| Template:Flagicon Budapesti Vasas SC | 0 | 1 | 1 |
All-time top scorers
| # | Player | Team | Matches | Goals | Ratio | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mokhtar Dahari | Template:Flagicon Malaysia | 50 | 36 | 0.72 | [20] |
| 2 | Kunishige Kamamoto | Template:Flagicon Japan | 18 | 22 | 1.22 | [21] |
| 3 | Abdul Kadir | Template:Flagicon Indonesia | 36 | 22 | 0.61 | [22] |
| 4 | Cha Bum-kun | Template:Flagicon South Korea | 34 | 21 | 0.62 | [23] |
| 5 | Abdul Ghani Minhat | Template:Flagicon Malaysia | 32 | 19 | 0.60 | [24] |
Top scorers
Notable players
Here are some prominent footballers, who participated in this competition.
- Template:Flagicon Mokhtar Dahari
- Template:Flagicon Soh Chin Ann
- Template:Flagicon Abdul Ghani Minhat
- Template:Flagicon Chow Chee Keong
- Template:Flagicon P. K. Banerjee
- Template:Flagicon Chuni Goswami
- Template:Flagicon Inder Singh
- Template:Flagicon Sunil Chhetri
- Template:Flagicon Moosa Ghazi
- Template:Flagicon Muhammad Umer
- Template:Flagicon Qayyum Changezi
- Template:Flagicon M.N Jehan
- Template:Flagicon Kim Jae-han
- Template:Flagicon Cha Bum-kun
- Template:Flagicon Park Sung-Hwa
- Template:Flagicon Lee Woon-jae
- Template:Flagicon Kunishige Kamamoto
- Template:Flagicon Yasuhiko Okudera
- Template:Flagicon Hiromi Hara
- Template:Flagicon Abdul Kadir
- Template:Flagicon Iswadi Idris
- Template:Flagicon Jakob Kjeldbjerg
- Template:Flagicon Jacob Laursen
- Template:Flagicon Suk Bahadur
- Template:Flagicon Hussein Saeed
- Template:Flagicon Abedi Pele
- Template:Flagicon Ryan Nelsen
- Template:Flagicon Kevin Keegan
Notes
References
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- ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1". 31 August 2021
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External links
Template:Pestabola Merdeka Script error: No such module "Navbox". Template:Friendly association football tournaments in Asia