User:The C of E/zim

Southern Rhodesia played their first official match against the England Amateur national football team as part of their tour of South Africa and Rhodesia. Southern Rhodesia lost their first two matches against England 4-0 and 6-1 respectively. In 1965, following Southern Rhodesia's Unilateral Declaration of Independence as Rhodesia, FIFA requested that the Football Association of Rhodesia reform to be a multi-racial organisation. Prior to this only white Rhodesians were selected for the national football team. In 1969, Rhodesia took part in 1970 FIFA World Cup qualification, their first attempt to qualify for the FIFA World Cup. Contrary to the team being viewed as the representative team of white Rhodesians, the team was multi-racial. They were drawn against Australia national football team. Both legs were held in Lourenco Marques, Portuguese Mozambique as the Rhodesian team were unable to get Australian visas. Rhodesia drew the first leg 1-1 but lost the second leg 3-1 thus eliminating Rhodesia from qualification.

In 1980, following the country's reconstitution as Zimbabwe, they played their first FIFA World Cup qualifying match for 11 years against the Cameroon national football team. However they lost 2-1 on aggregate after a 1-0 win in the first leg in Salisbury and a 2-0 loss in the second leg. Following this, the country passed a law that players who held British passports would not be permitted to hold a Zimbabwean passport, which mean that players such as goalkeeper Bruce Grobbelaar were not selected for the national team for 10 years. Following a change in policy that allowed Grobbelaar to play for Zimbabwe, who entered the country on his British passport, Zimbabwe were one match from qualifying for the 1994 FIFA World Cup. However, they lost their penultimate qualifying match to Cameroon.

In 2004, Zimbabwe qualified for their first Africa Cup of Nations. During their first match against Egypt; their former anthem "Ishe Komborera Africa" was accidentally played instead of "Simudzai Mureza wedu weZimbabwe" In 2015, the Zimbabwe national football team were banned from participating in the 2018 FIFA World Cup qualifying due to an unpaid debit to former coach, José Claudinei.