Prior to World War II, the Philippines had regularly competed with Japan and the Republic of China in the Far Eastern Championship Games.

[9][10] In the 1950s the Philippines hosted friendlies with international-based sides, However, the national team experienced lack of funding and barely received any coverage from the media.

During that time talents from the national team were drawn from the Manila Football League which received substantial support from the Chinese-Filipino community.

The national team's decent performance at the 1958 Asian Games, hosted in Tokyo, where they defeated Japan 1–0, was labeled as an upset by the Japanese press.

[11] The years following 1958 saw the decline of Philippine football, as several key players resigned from the national team due to financial challenges for playing.

Foreigners were hired to serve as head coaches for the national team in an attempt to reduce big margin loses.

[15] In 1971, head coach Juan Cutillas recruited five foreign players to play for the national team: four Spaniards and one Chinese.

Their poor performances led to Caslib's resignation,[23] as well as the refusal of the PFF to register and enter the qualification stages for the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

[25] However, it was revealed that the decision not to enter the 2010, as well as the 2006 World Cup qualification, was made during the PFF presidency of Rene Adad, whose term ended in 2003.

[31][32] In the knockout stage, they had to play both their designated home and away games against Indonesia in Jakarta due to the unavailability of a stadium that passes AFF standards.

The Philippines once again advanced from the group stage at the 2014 AFF Championship by winning over Indonesia, the first time since the 1934 Far Eastern Games,[36] and Laos despite their loss to Vietnam.

[37] The Philippines faced Thailand in the two-legged semifinal, coming up with a goalless draw against their opponents at home in Manila but losing the away match at Bangkok.

In late 2016 the Philippines jointly hosted the group stage of the AFF Championship with Myanmar though they fail to progress from the group stage like they did in the past three editions.Though the national team failed to qualify for the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia, they secured qualification for 2019 AFC Asian Cup after defeating Tajikistan, 2–1 at home in their final qualifier match.

[42] then a 0–3 loss to China[43] and was edged 1–3 by Kyrgyzstan, with Stephan Schröck scoring a historic goal for the Azkals in the tournament.

[46][47] Between these matches, the Pinoys also hosted China at home where they acquired an encouraging goalless draw, after a splendid performance by the Azkals goalkeeper Neil Etheridge which increased the team's chance.

The Filipinos then won against Guam 3–0, but lost 0–2 to China and thus did not manage to reach the 2022 FIFA World Cup, before ending the qualification with a 1–1 draw to the Maldives.

[52] Philippines then played in the second round of the 2026 FIFA World Cup qualification being place alongside Iraq and two regional rivals, Indonesia and Vietnam.

Philippines then played in the 2024 ASEAN Championship drawing 1–1 all their first group stage match against Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam.

[55][56] The Kaholeros started out as a gathering of friends using Twitter calling for fans to watch games of the AFC Challenge Cup at the National Sports Grill in Greenbelt.

[56] The traditional home kit is similar to the France national team; blue jersey, white shorts, and red socks.

[65] In June 2022, the team used Chronos Athletics-made kits when they competed in the third round of the 2023 AFC Asian Cup qualifiers in Mongolia.

[66] In the recent 2026 FIFA World Cup qualification match against Iraq, the Philippines were seen wearing a new kit design supplied by Puma.

[71] This was until late October 2010 when the Department of Foreign Affairs decided to change the official abbreviation of the country from "RP" to "PH" or "PHL", to be in line with ISO standards.

[78] The name was coined when an online Philippine football community proposed the nickname Calle Azul (Spanish for Streets of Blue, referring to the color of their kit) which was modified to Azul Calle, shortened to AzCal, and finally became Azkal – a word that is similar to Filipino term Askal meaning street dog.

[81] The Azkals name would be adopted by an independent 7-a-side club in 2024 competing in the 7's Football League led by Palami and former national team players.

[84] During the early years of the Philippine national team, they played their home matches at the Manila Carnival Grounds.

The continued use for athletics along with poor maintenance has deteriorated the stadium and the 1991 Southeast Asian Games was the last time it was used for international football matches.vIn early 2009, the Philippine Sports Commission planned to transform it to a modern football stadium which would make it usable by the national team for international matches.

The past three coaches, Simon McMenemy, Michael Weiß and Thomas Dooley, also made some strides at the regional level leading the team to the semifinals at the AFF Suzuki Cup (2010, 2012 and 2014 editions respectively), the top football tournament in Southeast Asia.

Eckhard Krautzun also led the national team to the semifinals, its best finish at the 1991 Southeast Asian Games, before football became an under-23 tournament at said multi-sporting event.

[138] At the 1917 Far Eastern Games, the Philippines recorded its biggest victory in an international match to date, which was the 15–2 win against Japan.