Northern Mariana Islands national football team
 |
|
| Nickname(s) | Blue Ayuyu |
|---|---|
| Association | Northern Mariana Islands Football Association |
| Confederation | AFC |
| Sub-confederation | East Asian Football Federation (East Asia) |
| Head coach |
 Kiyoshi Sekiguchi
|
| Captain | Johann Noetzel |
| Most caps | Nicolas Swaim (15) |
| Top scorer | Joe Wang Miller (4) |
| Home stadium | Oleai Sports Complex |
| FIFA ranking | |
| Current | N/A – not FIFA member |
| Elo ranking | |
| Current | 234 (4 July 2016) |
| Highest | 213 (30 July 1998) |
| Lowest | 234 (2 July 2016) |
| First international | |
 Northern Mariana Islands 8–0 Palau  (Koror, Palau; 27 July 1998) |
|
| Biggest win | |
| Northern Mariana Islands 12–1 Palau (Koror, Palau; 31 July 1998) |
|
| Biggest defeat | |
 Guam 9–0 Northern Mariana Islands (Hagåtña, Guam; 1 April 2007)  Palestine 9–0 Northern Mariana Islands (Kathmandu, Nepal; 4 March 2013) |
|
| World Cup | |
| Appearances | None |
| Best result | N/A – not FIFA member |
| AFC Asian Cup | |
| Appearances | None |
| South Asian Football Federation Cup | |
| Appearances | None |
| Best result | 2017 |
The Northern Mariana Islands national football team represents the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands in international men's football. The team is controlled by the governing body for football in the Northern Mariana Islands, the Northern Mariana Islands Football Association, which is a member of the East Asian Football Federation (EAFF) and an associate member of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC). The federation is not a member of the world governing body FIFA and so whilst the national team is eligible to enter AFC and EAFF-run competitions, they are currently ineligible for global competitions such as the FIFA World Cup and FIFA Confederations Cup. As such, they do not have an official FIFA ranking. However, the team have been consistently ranked as one of the worst teams in the world on the Elo ratings and are in fact, at July 2016 rated as the worst men's senior international team in the world in a ratings system that also includes a number of other non-FIFA teams. Following the completion of the preliminary qualifying round for the 2017 EAFF East Asian Cup the team have won only one official competitive match against international opposition and have a goal difference of −78 in official matches. The team have never qualified for the finals of a major tournament and beyond friendlies and qualifying matches, their only official competition has been in an exhibition tournament in the regional Micronesian Games in 1998, which they won, to date their only tournament success.
They are one of the youngest international teams, having played their first match in an exhibition tournament associated with the 1998 Micronesian Games. Following this appearance, they played only one more match, against the Federated States of Micronesia before the original governing body for football in the country, the Northern Mariana Islands Soccer Federation, became defunct and the team withdrew from international competition. During the time of the Northern Mariana Islands Soccer Federation, eligibility criteria for the national team were quite lax, a minimum residency requirement of two years meant that the national team often included a number of contractors working on Saipan who were not of Northern Marianan heritage. Following the foundation of a new governing body, the Northern Mariana Islands Football Association, the national team was reestablished and, having resigned their associate membership of the Oceania Football Confederation (OFC), they joined the EAFF in 2006, becoming full members in 2008.
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