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 1976. It existed side by side with a separate South Vietnam team, which 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 prevented it from ever joining either FIFA or the AFC. Due to its lack of membership in major football bodies, North Vietnam never participated in qualification for the FIFA World Cup or the AFC Asian Cup (unlike its southern counterpart, which participated in both). Because of North Vietnam's international isolation, its national team mostly played against other 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 into the newly created Socialist Republic of Vietnam in 1976, after the end of the Vietnam War. 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.