Football was firstly introduced during Portuguese Timor era where many local and the Portuguese colonial official played the sport for enjoyment. After the Portuguese leave the eastern part of the island of Timor, neighbouring Indonesia invaded and change their culture and identity. East Timor gained full independence in 2002 after more than 20 years of occupation which resulted in a long running battle against Jakarta-led forces. East Timor Football Association was accepted as an associate member of AFC at the 20th AFC Congress in 2002. Timor Leste U-23 was invited to the 2005 AFF U-23 Youth Championship, which is the first appearances for the team to play in under-23 international tournament despite not achieving success the competition. In 2009, the team enter the first Southeast Asian Games. Once again the team loss every matches and was humiliated after losing 0–11 to the Malaysia national team. Timor-Leste have major improvement at the 2011 SEA Games, when they use overseas players from Brazil and Australia whom their parents are exile from the Indonesian invasion in 1975. These players contribute success at the two matches of the 2011 edition; especially from Murilo de Almeida who managed to score three goals. Overall the under-23 team began to did well and was one of a new potential teams at the SEA Games. The team finished third in their group by recording their first win in the SEA Games and finishing above Laos, Brunei and the Philippines. They finished the SEA games with a goal difference of –4, with big improvement in SEA Games compared to their previous participation where the team finished last in their group with no wins from four games and a big goal difference of –28 and only one goal scored.