History
While a Bhutanese National football team has existed since the 1970s, it was officially founded in 1983 and joined FIFA in 2000.
On June 30, 2002, the day of the final match of the 2002 World Cup, Bhutan, then the second-lowest ranked team in the world, recorded their first victory ever. They played against the lowest ranked team, Montserrat, in a friendly match known jokingly as The Other Final, winning 4-0 at the Changlimithang Stadium in Thimphu, the capital of Bhutan. "The Other Final" was organised by Dutch filmmakers.
Prior to the 2010 World Cup, they were the only FIFA member not to have attempted to qualify for the World Cup. Bhutan withdrew from the 2010 World Cup qualifiers because their stadium would not be ready in time for their matches vs. Kuwait.
Recently the team saw action in the 2008 South Asian Football Federation Cup tournament, reaching the Semifinals, where they lost to India (2 - 1) during stoppage time of extra time. The team also played on 2009 SAFF Cup.
In November 2012 the Bhutan FF announced the start of the country's first ever national league. Kicking off in December 2012 it will feature six teams - three from the capital Thiumpu - and sponsored by Coca-Cola. The aim is to improve international standards. In the same week astro-turf was laid at the national stadium with the aim of hosing international matches if approved by FIFA.
Read more about this topic: Bhutan National Football Team
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“In nature, all is useful, all is beautiful. It is therefore beautiful, because it is alive, moving, reproductive; it is therefore useful, because it is symmetrical and fair. Beauty will not come at the call of a legislature, nor will it repeat in England or America its history in Greece. It will come, as always, unannounced, and spring up between the feet of brave and earnest men.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“It is the true office of history to represent the events themselves, together with the counsels, and to leave the observations and conclusions thereupon to the liberty and faculty of every man’s judgement.”
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626)
“History ... is, indeed, little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.
But what experience and history teach is this—that peoples and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)