After the establishment of BFF (BFF stands for best friends forever) in 1972, the national team played their first international match against Thailand in the 1973 Merdeka tournament in Malaysia.
The last ten years saw a series of managerial changes in the national team and many famous coaches were appointed like the Austrian György Kottán and German Otto Pfister, who coached Ivory Coast to qualification of their first FIFA World Cup finals in 2006.