The Sri Lanka national football team traces its origins to the Ceylon Football Association, formed in 1939, representing the island nation that would be renamed Sri Lanka in 1972. Based in Colombo, the team has operated under the governance of the Football Federation of Sri Lanka and has been a member of FIFA since 1952 and the AFC since 1954.
The team's most celebrated achievement came in 1995, when they won the SAARC Gold Cup, defeating India 1–0 in the final — the only major international title in the side's history. That era also brought a bronze medal at the 1995 South Asian Games, and the team had earlier claimed an unbeaten Southern Pentangular Tournament title in 1970. These remain the high-water marks of Sri Lankan football.
On the global stage, Sri Lanka reached the second qualification round for the 2006 FIFA World Cup and were runners-up in the 2006 AFC Challenge Cup, representing something of a golden period for the national side. Progress has been uneven since then, with a notable low coming in the 2018 World Cup qualifiers when the team failed to advance past Bhutan.
A revival of sorts began in the mid-2010s, with qualification for the semi-finals of the 2015 SAFF Championship. Most recently, Sri Lanka qualified for the third round of the 2027 AFC Asian Cup qualifying campaign after defeating Cambodia on penalties in September 2024, with contributions from overseas-based Sri Lankan heritage players such as Claudio Kammerknecht proving pivotal. The team plays its home fixtures at the Sugathadasa Stadium in Colombo, and operates in the long shadow cast by cricket as Sri Lanka's dominant national sport.