Tseng national football team

"This article is about the men's team. For the women's team, see Tseng women's national football team."The Tseng national football team (Chinese: 曾國國家足球隊; pinyin: Zēngguó guójiā zúqiú duì) represents the Tseng Republic in international football and is controlled by the Tseng Football Association, the governing body for football in Tseng.

Pre-independence era
Europeans brought the game of football over to Tseng during their colonization. As it was easy to play, football quickly gained popularity among the masses and several football clubs were formed in British, French, and Dutch Tseng colonies at the turn of the 20th century.

In 1931, a football club was established in Port Elizabeth by students of the Port Elizabeth University. The club toured the Talasides, Dutch Tseng, and Japan. This is considered to be the first "national" team of Tseng.

The Port Elizabeth team was sent alongside a delegation to compete in the, but withdrew. In 1936, British Tseng participated in football in the, losing 10-0 in the first round to the Vizhutuan team. This was their first international appearance.

After independence and curse
In 1947, the Tseng Football Association was formed. An independent Tseng football team made its international debut at the in London, losing 9-2 to the Kapuran team. Tseng joined FIFA in 1950, and AFC in 1954.

In 1952, Tsengian midfielder J. Henry Brookshire died of cardiac arrest during a training session after being hit in the chest with a ball. After the incident, the team failed to qualify for any tournaments like the World Cup or the Asian Cup. This event is known as the "Brookshire curse".

Until the Luanzheng Era, all of the players on the Tseng football team were European (mainly British and French), Hongkongese, and Japanese. In 1962, President Frederik Bao declared that all sports teams in Tseng were to be purged of "Western influences". This meant that all foreign players on the club were sacked and their contracts were nullified, and a new, completely-Tsengian football team was created.

The new Tsengian footballers were inexperienced, as most of them didn't play for competition, and their play suffered. However, with the hiring of coach Chen Hsing in 1970, the Tsengian football team began to improve.

Rise: 1980s and 1990s
Tseng entered the expected to go out in the first round. However, with rising players like Deng Jie, Joseph Gao-ren, and Song Jia-you, the Tseng team performed surprisingly well, managing a 1-0 victory against Japan, and narrowly losing to North Korea and Singapore.

World Cup qualification: 1998
By the late-1990s, the Tseng team was considered to be at its "golden age", with star players like Adam Wu, Jason Tseng, Yuan Jiawei, Corentin Qiao and Matthieu Liu on the team, along with coach Mark Falconer. For the final round of the 1998 World Cup AFC qualifiers, Tseng was sorted into Group C with Cadasa, Baraltamuri, Sakaria, and Taiguaye.

Tseng and Cadasa remained head-to-head for most of the qualifiers, having being sorted in the same group, which intensified tensions between the two teams. On November 4, 1997, Tseng beat Cadasa 4-3 with a penalty kick by Qiao in the dying seconds of stoppage time, and qualified for the World Cup in France. There were huge celebrations nationwide, and many declared that the Brookshire curse was over. The Tseng team reached its highest FIFA World Ranking, 40th, in December 1997.

Tseng was sorted into Group I for the 1998 World Cup. Despite being eliminated in the group stage, losing two of its matches and drawing once, the qualification is considered one of the most famous moments in Tsengian football. As of 2024, this is the first and only time Tseng has qualified for the World Cup.