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Tajikistan played its first official game on April 11 1994 in Tashkent as part of a regional tournament. They lost that game against Kazakhstan 0:1. The first official competition the team entered was the Asian Nations Cup 1996 when it was seeded in the three-team Group 8 with Uzbekistan and Bahrain. Bahrain later withdrew leaving Tajikistan to play-off against their Middle Asian neighbors. Tajikistan won the first game 4:0, but were beaten in the away game 0:5 after extra time. They did not enter the World Cup qualifying competition until the France 1998 edition, recording four victories in their preliminary group stage including a 5-0 triumph over Turkmenistan, and losing only to China, which placed them second behind their eastern neighbors but out of the competition. In a three-team qualifying section for Korea/Japan 2002, they had a record 16-0 win over Guam before losing 2-0 to Iran. After beating Bangladesh 4-0 on aggregate in the preliminary round of qualifiers for Germany 2006, they held AFC Asian Cup semi-finalists and eventual group winners Bahrain to a goalless draw on 31 March 2004. The team won its first international tournament, the inaugural AFC Challenge Cup, in 2006, beating Sri Lanka 4-0 in Dhaka. |
