North Vietnam national football team

The Democratic Republic of Vietnam national football team (Vietnamese: Đội tuyển bóng đá quốc gia Việt Nam Dân chủ Cộng hòa) was the national team of the communist-controlled Democratic Republic of Vietnam (known as "North Vietnam") from 1956 to 1975.

It existed side by side with a separate South Vietnam team, which already appeared in 1949 before the country's division and represented the capitalist-oriented southern portion of Vietnam. Unlike South Vietnam (which was a member of both FIFA and the Asian Football Confederation), North Vietnam's lack of diplomatic recognition on the part of many other states initially prevented it from joining either FIFA or the AFC. However, North Vietnam became a member of FIFA in 1964. Despite this, it never participated in qualification for the FIFA World Cup or the AFC Asian Cup, and its international matches were mainly limited to Communist and Communist-sympathizing countries during its relatively short-lived existence.

The North Vietnam football team played its last game in 1970 and ceased to exist with the unification of North and South Vietnam in 1975 (officially in 1976), when the Vietnam War ended. Even though the North emerged victorious in the war, the current Vietnam national football team is considered a successor to the South Vietnam team (not the North Vietnam team), since unified Vietnam inherited South Vietnam's membership of FIFA and the AFC.