The is the national team of
El Salvador and is controlled by the
Federación Salvadoreña De Fútbol . They have qualified for two
World Cups ,
México 70 and
España 82 .
In the 1970 tournament, El Salvador lost their first game 3-0 to in Mexico City, to finish bottom of Group A.
In
1982 , El Salvador took a 20-man squad (two players short of the normal 22, for reasons that remain unclear), coached by Mauricio "Pipo" Rodríguez, to Spain. However, the team's experience was an unhappy one. In their first match on June 15, in
Elche , they were defeated 10-1 by
Hungary , a scoreline that stands as a
World Cup record to this day. One crumb of comfort was that
Luis Baltazar Ramírez Zapata did score the country's first ever World Cup goal during the game, albeit at a point when the Salvadorans were already down 5-0.
El Salvador managed to regain some pride in their subsequent games: displaying much-improved levels of organisation and commitment, they lost 1-0 to
Belgium on June 19 in Elche and 2-0 to the then reigning world champions
Argentina in
Alicante on June 23.
- 1991 - ''Did not qualify''
- 1993 - ''Did not qualify''
- 1996 - 6th place
- 1998 - 8th place
- 2000 - ''Did not qualify''
- 2002 - 8th place
- 2003 - 6th place
- 2005 - ''Did not qualify''
- 2007 - 9th place
- First Central American team to qualify for a FIFA World Cup (1970) and first Central American team to qualify twice (1982).
- For the 1982 FIFA World Cup , Mexico did not qualify because they were eliminated by El Salvador in the qualifying hexagonal tournament.
1 ''Players that have recently been called up to the Salvadoran squad''
National team players that are currently not selected as a result of injury
List of players who where once regulars for national side, but have recently been omitted.
1 - El Salvador score always listed first
;Key
