Mitsubishi Electric Cup

Back

ASEAN Championship: Records & Statistics

AUFC logo

10 Nov 2024

image

The ASEAN Championship has thrilled lovers of Southeast Asian football for almost three decades ever since the tournament commenced in the year 1996.

The 2024 edition will be the 15th time that the region's flagship competition will take place with Thailand, Singapore, Vietnam and Malaysia being the only nations to have lifted the trophy in its illustrious history.

With less than a month to kick off on 8 December, ASEAN United FC throws the spotlight on some of the standout records and statistics from over the years.

Thailand, the undisputed Kings

Thailand have been the ASEAN Championship’s most dominant side having reached the final in 10 of the 14 editions and boasting a record seven titles to their name, including four of the last five, making them the team to beat before the ball is kicked.

This time around, the War Elephants have their eyes set on an unprecedented hat-trick of titles and are in superb form recently, which has seen them rise up to the 96th spot in the latest FIFA rankings.

Five-star Zico!

While many players dream of lifting the coveted trophy at least once in their career, Thailand great Kiatisuk ‘Zico’ Senamuang has five winners medals in his cabinet.

The prolific forward won three titles as a player in 1996, 2000 and 2002 before adding to it as the head coach in 2014 and 2016, in addition to being named the tournament’s Most Valuable Player (MVP) in 2000. He is the most successful individual in ASEAN Championship history.

Incredible feat

Another deadly Southeast Asian forward was Singapore’s Noh Alam Shah who is the second-highest scorer in ASEAN Championship history with 17 goals. Remarkably, seven of those came in a single match.

The Singapore national team recorded their biggest-ever victory at the 2007 ASEAN Championship when they routed Laos 11-0 at the Singapore National Stadium, with Alam Shah netting seven of those.

A tale of hard luck for Indonesia 

Indonesia hold the most unwanted record in ASEAN Championship history, finishing as the runners-up on six different occasions with the wait for their first Southeast Asian title still going on.

The Garuda reached the final most recently at the 2020 edition when they were beaten 6-2 on aggregate by Thailand. The closest they came to winning the final was also against the Thais in 2002, when they suffered a heartbreaking 4-2 penalty shootout defeat in front of 100,000 fans at Gelora Bung Karno Stadium in Jakarta.

Red-hot Teerasil

Teerasil Dangda is still going strong at the age of 36 and could well appear in yet another ASEAN Championship for Thailand next month.

The BG Pathum United forward first scored against Malaysia in the 2008 ASEAN Championship, going on to finish as the top scorer five times (including joint top scorer). He stands out in front as the most prolific Southeast Asian forward with 25 goals in the competition.

Hat-trick Hero

Malaysia’s K. Sanbagamaran was the first player to score an ASEAN Championship hat-trick in the inaugural edition back in 1996 when the Harimau Malaya defeated Philippines 7-0 to register their first-ever win in the competition.

Since then, many players have gone on to score hat-tricks with the aforementioned Teerasil and Alam Shah along with Vietnam’s Le Cong Vinh and Indonesia’s Bambang Pamungkas being in a select bracket to have been the only ones who have netted multiple hat-tricks.

Most Valuable Goalkeepers

What do Vietnam’s Duong Hong Son and Singapore’s Lionel Lewis share in common? Both of them remain the only goalkeepers to have been awarded the Most Valuable Player (MVP) at an ASEAN Championship, owing to their superb shot-stopping abilities.

Hong Son starred as Vietnam won their first-ever title in 2008 while four years earlier it was another player in goal, Lewis, who was the standout player as Singapore clinched their second regional crown.

Teenage sensation 

In November 2000, Myanmar midfielder Aung Kyaw Tun scripted a world football record on the ASEAN Championship stage that might be very difficult to break in the years to come.

Kyaw Tun scored in a 3-1 defeat against Thailand in Chiang Mai when he was just 14 years and 93 days old, becoming the youngest goalscorer in men’s football history, a record which still stands today.

Master Tactician 

No head coach has had as much success at the ASEAN Championship as Radojko Avramovic with the Serbian fondly remembered for leading Singaporean football to a period of glory from 2003 to 2012.

During this time, Singapore won three titles, notably beating Thailand twice in the final in 2007 and 2012. The man known as “Raddy” departed after the Lions’ fourth regional triumph in 2012, and the team have been unable to hit those heights since.

Late drama for the Philippines!

And finally, the Philippines had one of the most unwanted records since the beginning of the ASEAN Championship having failed to win any of their opening 16 matches since the tournament began.

It all ended in 2004 in dramatic fashion! Januario had given debutants Timor-Leste the lead in the 59th minute but Emelio Caligdong had other ideas, popping up with two stoppage-time goals to earn his nation a memorable first-ever victory in the competition. They’ve since gone on to reach the semi-finals on four occasions, becoming one of the most improved teams in the region.

Back
‹
›
Lightbox Image
1 / 9