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Football was introduced to the Maldives by a visiting Sri Lankan in the 1970s and the game is now played by just over 5,000 of the Indian Ocean island chain's 238,000 population. Six clubs compete in the Maldives First Division, which was first won by Valencia in 1983.
The islanders did not start competing in major international competitions until the qualifiers for the 1996 Asian Cup, where they finished bottom of their qualifying group behind Thailand, Singapore and Myanmar after losing every game. In 1986, Maldives became affiliated with AFC and FIFA.
Their best result to-date is holding 2002 FIFA World Cup Korea/Japan semi finalist, Korea Republic in Male to a scoreless draw in the 2006 FIFA World Cup Germany qualifiers brought the nation to a standstill especially with the Korea's World Cup triumph still fresh in their mind.
Also in their group, Maldives defeated Vietnam to chalk up an extremely good result in a group where they were supposed to be canon fodders.
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