Merdeka Tournament

Merdeka Tournament (Malay: Pestabola Merdeka) is an international friendly football tournament held in Malaysia to commemorate the Independence Day. It is mainly played at Independence Stadium, Kuala Lumpur.^[1] The competition bears the Malay word for independence. The Merdeka Tournament was once regarded as the 'Grand Old Lady of Asia' where top teams from football playing nations would love to be invited.^[2] As of 2023, the tournament has been held 42 times, and 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.^[3]

Merdeka Football Tournament

Organising body	FAM
Founded	1957; 67 years ago (1957)
Region	International
Number of teams	Varied (4 in 2024)
Current champions	Malaysia (13th title)
Most successful team(s)	Malaysia (13 titles)
2024 Merdeka Tournament

History

The winner of the second season of Merdeka Cup in 1958, Malaya football team, five years before the merger to form Malaysia. Also in the picture is Tunku Abdul Rahman (centre), the first Prime Minister of Malaya, and at that time president of Football Association of Malaya & Asian Football Confederation.^[4][5]

The Merdeka Tournament is Asia`s oldest football tournament which invited football playing nations to compete since 1957.^[6][7][8][9] 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.^[10][11] 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.^[12] 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.^[13] 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.^[14] 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 and AFC Asian Cup.^[15]

The first edition of the tournament was held in August and September 1957 with Hong Kong emerging inaugural champions.^[16] 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.^[17]

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' Sao 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. ^[18]

List of finals

Merdeka Tournament logo in 2013.

Below are the list of Merdeka Football Tournament finals since 1957.^[19][20]

Ed.	Year	Winners	Score	Runners-up
1	1957	Hong Kong League XI[lower-alpha 1]	Round-robin	Indonesia
2	1958	Malaya	Round-robin	Hong Kong League XI[lower-alpha 1]
3	1959	Malaya	Round-robin	India
4	1960	Malaya and  South Korea	0–0[lower-alpha 2]	—
5	1961	Indonesia	2–1	Malaya
6	1962	Indonesia	2–1	Pakistan
7	1963	Taiwan[lower-alpha 1]	Round-robin	Japan
8	1964	Burma	1–0	India
9	1965	South Korea and  Taiwan[lower-alpha 1]	1–1[lower-alpha 2]	—
10	1966	South Vietnam	1–0	Burma
11	1967	Burma and  South Korea[lower-alpha 3]	0–0[lower-alpha 2]	—
12	1968	Malaysia	3–0	Burma
13	1969	Indonesia	3–2	Malaysia
14	1970	South Korea	1–0	Burma
15	1971	Burma	1–0	Indonesia
16	1972	South Korea	2–1	Malaysia
17	1973	Malaysia	3–1	Kuwait
18	1974	Malaysia	1–0	South Korea B
19	1975	South Korea	1–0	Malaysia
20	1976	Malaysia	2–0	Japan
21	1977	South Korea	1–0	Iraq
22	1978	South Korea	2–0	Iraq
23	1979	Malaysia and South Korea B	0–0[lower-alpha 2]	—
24	1980	Morocco	2–1	Malaysia
25	1981	Iraq	1–0	Sao Paulo XI
26	1982	Santa Catarina XI	3–0	Ghana
27	1983	Buenos Aires XI	2–1	Algeria XI
28	1984	South Korea B	2–0	Minas Gerais XI
29	1985	South Korea B	7–4 (a.e.t.)	America FC Rio de Janeiro
30	1986	Malaysia	3–0	Czechoslovakia XI
31	1987	Czechoslovakia Olympic	3–2	South Korea
32	1988	Hamburger SV	1–0	FC Tirol Innsbruck
33	1991	SK Admira Wacker	3–0	China Olympic Team
34	1993	Malaysia	3–1	South Korea B
35	1995	Iraq	2–0	Budapesti Vasas SC
36	2000	New Zealand	2–0	Malaysia
37	2001	Uzbekistan	2–1	Bosnia and Herzegovina
38	2006	Myanmar	2–1	Indonesia
39	2007	Malaysia U-23	3–1	Myanmar
40	2008	Vietnam U-22	0–0 (6–5 (p))	Malaysia
41	2013	Malaysia U-23	2–0	Myanmar U-23
42	2023	Tajikistan	2–0	Malaysia
43	2024	Malaysia	1–0	Lebanon

Records and statistics

Performance by nations

Below are the records of national teams (including youth teams) since 1957.

#	Team	Titles	Runners-up	Total
1	Malaysia[lower-alpha 4]	13[lower-alpha 5]	8	20
2	South Korea[lower-alpha 6]	11[lower-alpha 7]	3	14
3	Myanmar[lower-alpha 8]	4[lower-alpha 9]	5	9
4	Indonesia	3	3	6
5	Iraq	2	2	4
6	Taiwan[lower-alpha 1]	2[lower-alpha 9]	0	2
	Vietnam[lower-alpha 10]	2	0	2
8	Hong Kong League XI[lower-alpha 1]	1	1	2
	Czechoslovakia[lower-alpha 11]	1	1	2
10	Morocco	1	0	1
	New Zealand	1	0	1
	Uzbekistan	1	0	1
	Tajikistan	1	0	1
14	India	0	2	2
	Japan	0	2	2
16	Pakistan	0	1	1
	Kuwait	0	1	1
	Ghana	0	1	1
	Algeria XI	0	1	1
	China Olympic Team	0	1	1
	Bosnia and Herzegovina	0	1	1

Performance by state or club teams

Below are the records of state or clubteams since 1957.

#	Team	Titles	Runners-up	Total
1	Santa Catarina XI	1	0	1
	Buenos Aires XI	1	0	1
	Hamburger SV	1	0	1
	SK Admira Wacker	1	0	1
5	Sao Paulo XI	0	1	1
	Minas Gerais XI	0	1	1
	America FC Rio de Janeiro	0	1	1
	FC Tirol Innsbruck	0	1	1
	Budapesti Vasas SC	0	1	1

All-time top scorers

#	Player	Team	Matches	Goals	Ratio	Ref.
1	Mokhtar Dahari	Malaysia	50	36	0.72	[21]
2	Kunishige Kamamoto	Japan	18	22	1.22	[22]
3	Abdul Kadir	Indonesia	36	22	0.61	[23]
4	Cha Bum-kun	South Korea	34	21	0.62	[24]
5	Abdul Ghani Minhat	Malaysia	32	19	0.60	[25]

Top scorers

Year	Player	Team	Goals
1987	Václav Daněk	Czechoslovakia Olympic	6
1988	Peter Pacult	FC Tirol Innsbruck	5
1991	Ernst Ogris	SK Admira Wacker	4
1993	Petar Aleksandrov	FC Aarau	4
1995	Lee Woo-young	South Korea U-23	3
2000	Chris Killen	New Zealand	3
2001	Bakhtiyor Hamidullaev Husain Ali	Uzbekistan  Bahrain	3
2006	Indra Putra Mahayuddin	Malaysia	3
2007	Safee Sali	Malaysia U-23	3
2008	Safee Sali (2)	Malaysia	5
2013	Rozaimi Rahman	Malaysia U-23	3
2023	8 players	India  Malaysia  Tajikistan	1
2024	5 players	Lebanon  Malaysia  Philippines	1

Notable players

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

• Mokhtar Dahari
• Soh Chin Ann
• Abdul Ghani Minhat
• Chow Chee Keong
• P. K. Banerjee
• Chuni Goswami
• Inder Singh
• Sunil Chhetri
• Kim Jae-han
• Cha Bum-kun
• Park Sung-Hwa
• Lee Woon-jae
• Kunishige Kamamoto
• Yasuhiko Okudera
• Hiromi Hara
• Abdul Kadir
• Iswadi Idris
• Jakob Kjeldbjerg
• Jacob Laursen
• Suk Bahadur
• Hussein Saeed
• Abedi Pele
• Ryan Nelsen
• Kevin Keegan

Notes

1. Hong Kong sent its team that consisted of players that represented Republic of China (Taiwan) or Hong Kong from 1957 to 1961. From 1963 to 1968, the team officially represented Republic of China (Taiwan) but was composed of Hong Kong-based Republic of China international footballers; From 1965 onwards, Hong Kong and Taiwan's national teams also participated.
2. Title was shared after match finished in a draw
3. Represented by Yangzee FC
4. includes results representing  Malaya and Malaysia national under-23 football team
5. Includes two shared titles.
6. includes results representing South Korea B and South Korea U-23
7. Includes four shared titles.
8. includes results representing  Burma and Myanmar national under-22 football team
9. Include one shared title.
10. includes results representing  South Vietnam and the Vietnam national under-23 football team
11. includes results representing Czechoslovakia Olympic football team

References

1. "Stadium Merdeka soul of the nation". New Straits Times. Archived from the original on 7 December 2021. Retrieved 30 August 2015.
2. "Bring back Grand Old Lady of Asia". New Straits Times. Archived from the original on 13 June 2020. Retrieved 25 February 2019.
3. "Diiktiraf perlawanan kelas A, ini 5 sebab Pesta Bola Merdeka patut dihidupkan semula" [Recognized as a class "A" match, these are 5 reasons why the Pestabola Merdeka should be revived]. Majoriti.com. 20 September 2022. Archived from the original on 5 November 2022. Retrieved 20 September 2022.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
4. "ASIAN ICONS: TUNKU ABDUL RAHMAN PUTRA AL HAJ". AFC at Wayback Machine. 5 August 2014. Archived from the original on 23 September 2016. Retrieved 13 January 2018.
5. "OCM Sports Museum & Hall of Fame: Tunku Abdul Rahman". OCM at Wayback Machine. 12 April 2010. Archived from the original on 12 April 2010. Retrieved 15 January 2019.
6. Ajitpal Singh (7 September 2013). "Glory beckons Malaysia". New Straits Times. Archived from the original on 8 September 2013. Retrieved 28 February 2018.
7. Ted Gim (2 September 2008). ""Hari Merdeka" Observed in Seoul". The Seoul Times. malaysia.or.kr. Archived from the original on 20 December 2014. Retrieved 28 February 2018.
8. "Merdeka Cup To 'Restart' Again! India May Feature, Feels AIFF Chief". MENAFN. 22 October 2022. Archived from the original on 22 October 2022. Retrieved 22 October 2022.
9. Asiaweek. Asiaweek Limited. 1990.
10. "Piala FAM, Pestabola Merdeka bakal kembali" [FAM Cup, Pestabola Merdeka will return] (in Malay). Bebas News. Archived from the original on 28 February 2022. Retrieved 2 March 2022.
11. "India eye glory in 'mini Asia Cup'". The Shillong Times. Archived from the original on 20 November 2023. Retrieved 13 October 2023.
12. "Pestabola Merdeka: The legacy of Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra Al-Haj's Wisdom and Courage". Legasi Lagenda. Archived from the original on 24 November 2023. Retrieved 15 August 2023.
13. "Hope Floats For Stalled Merdeka Tournament". New Straits Times. Archived from the original on 2 March 2022. Retrieved 2 March 2022.
14. Eric Samuel (31 August 2017). "Halcyon days of Malaysian football". The Star. Archived from the original on 10 June 2021. Retrieved 28 February 2018.
15. Sulaiman Ismail (25 December 2018). "Pestabola Merdeka Akan Dianjurkan Mengikut Kalendar FIFA" [Pestabola Merdeka Will Be Organized According to the FIFA Calendar]. Semuanya Bola (in Malay). Archived from the original on 27 July 2021. Retrieved 25 December 2018.
16. T. Avineshwaran (13 May 2004). "Sporting landmarks through the years". The Star. Archived from the original on 1 March 2018. Retrieved 28 February 2018.
17. "Happy 64th Independence Day - Legasi Lagenda". 31 August 2021. Archived from the original on 7 March 2023. Retrieved 7 March 2023. 31 August 2021
18. "FAM to invite three countries for Merdeka Tournament | New Straits Times".
19. "Merdeka Tournament". International football.net. 25 October 2008. Archived from the original on 23 September 2020. Retrieved 31 August 2012.
20. Neil Morrison (10 September 2015). "Merdeka Tournament (Malaysia)". Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation. Archived from the original on 19 July 2022. Retrieved 28 February 2018.
21. "Mohamed Mokhtar Dahari – Century of International Appearances". www.rsssf.org. Retrieved 15 October 2023.
22. Hatano, Morio. "Kunishige Kamamoto - Goals in international matches". RSSSF. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 15 October 2019.
23. Nazim, Samsun. "Abdul Kadir - Century of International Appearances". RSSSF. Archived from the original on 30 December 2021. Retrieved 5 February 2022.
24. Villante, Eric. "Bum-Kun Cha - Century of international appearances". RSSSF. Archived from the original on 24 March 2023. Retrieved 30 March 2023.
25. Villante, Eric. "Abdul Ghani Minhat – Goals in International Matches". RSSSF. Archived from the original on 15 April 2021. Retrieved 5 February 2022.

External links