The Tajikistan national football team (Tajik: Тими миллии футболи Тоҷикистон, Timi milliji futʙoli Toçikiston) represents Tajikistan in international football and is controlled by the Tajikistan Football Federation, the governing body for football in Tajikistan. Tajikistan's home ground is the Pamir Stadium in Dushanbe.
After the breakup of the Soviet Union, Tajikistan played its first match against Uzbekistan on 17 June 1992. It was not until 1994 that the Tajikistan National Football Federation was admitted to FIFA.
Tajikistan played its first official game on 11 April 1994 in Tashkent as part of a regional tournament. They lost that game against Kazakhstan 0–1.[3] The first official competition the team entered was the qualifiers for the 1996 Asian Cup, when it was seeded in the three-team Group 8 with Uzbekistan and Bahrain. Bahrain later withdrew, leaving Tajikistan to a play-off against their Middle Asian neighbors. Tajikistan won the first game 4–0, but were beaten in the away game 0–5 after extra time. They did not enter a World Cupqualifying competition until the France 1998 edition, recording four victories in their preliminary group stage including a 5–0 triumph over Turkmenistan, and losing only to China, which placed them second behind their eastern neighbors, but out of the competition.[3]
In a three-team qualifying section for Korea/Japan 2002, they had a record 16–0 win over Guam before losing 2–0 to Iran. After beating Bangladesh 4–0 on aggregate in the preliminary round of the qualifiers for Germany 2006, they held AFC Asian Cup semi-finalists and eventual group winners Bahrain to a goalless draw on 31 March 2004.
The team won its first international tournament, the inaugural AFC Challenge Cup, in 2006, beating Sri Lanka 4–0 in Dhaka.
Following Tajikistan's disappointing 2018 World Cupqualifying campaign, Mubin Ergashev and his staff were relieved of their duties.[4]
Tajikistan were drawn into a 2019 Asian Cup qualification group with the Philippines, Yemen and Nepal. Following their defeat to Philippines on 27 March 2018, confirming Tajikistan's failure to qualify for the Asian Cup, manager Khakim Fuzailov resigned.[5]
Due to the unsuccessful performance of Tajikistan in recent years, Usmon Toshev, the Uzbek coach, was appointed to reinvigorate the Tajik side. Under Usmon, Tajikistan performed well in the 2022 FIFA World Cup qualifying, managing to beat neighbor Kyrgyzstan 1–0 and holding the same opponent 1–1 away. However, Tajikistan suffered a heartbreaking shock 3–4 loss to minnows Myanmar away, in what was considered to be a shock given Myanmar's poor form in early games, thus putting Tajikistan into trouble. Ultimately, with the withdrawal of North Korea, Tajikistan paid dearly when its points against Mongolia were not counted, thus following Tajikistan 1–4 away loss to Japan, an Asian powerhouse, Tajikistan was officially out of the 2022 FIFA World Cup. Eventually, despite Myanmar replacing Mongolia to finish bottom thus added six points for Tajikistan, the Tajiks could not reduce the deficit due to poor goal difference and thus missed out on the final round.
Team image[]
Kit[]
The team strip is currently sponsored by Chinese sporting apparel company Li-Ning.[6]
Home stadium[]
Tajikistan play their home matches at the Pamir Stadium
Match date: 7 & 15 June 2021[7]
Opposition: Japan & Myanmar
Competition: 2022 FIFA World Cup qualification Caps and goals updated as of 15 June 2021, after the match against Myanmar.
In 2006, Tajikistan took part in the inaugural ELF Cup in Northern Cyprus. This competition was originally intended to be for teams that were not members of FIFA; however, the organisers extended invitations to both Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, who were both represented by their national futsal teams. Tajikistan failed to get past the group stage.
2 (16 September 2021)[1]
Tajikistan 2–2 Uzbekistan 
Tajikistan 16–0 Guam 
Japan 8–0 Tajikistan 
33
Mongolia 
Myanmar 
Narva Trans
Lokomotiv Plovdiv
Krasnodar
Torpedo-BelAZ Zhodino
Penang
Rahmatganj MFS
Kemal Alispahić
Nikola Kavazović
1930 to 
1990
Soviet Union
1994
1998
2006
2010
2014
2022
2000
2004
2007
2015
