This match is from the friendly tournament which take place in Asia every year. This time the Merdeka tournamnet will be held at the Natoonal stadium in Bujit Jalil, Kuala Lumpur. Other than the hosts Malaysia the other teams taking part this year are Tajikistan, Lebanon and the Philippines. In general, the two rivals are not far in class, but it seems that Tajikistan is a team that can be trusted a little more. In a more global sense, Lebanon is regressing in it's development and presentation of the national team. For comparison, this team from 2018 reached the 81st place in the FIFA rankings, and to date the team has fallen to the 116th. The opposite is true for Tajikistan, which, referring to the same period from 2018 to 2024, when the team is at 120th place, and now Tajikistan is already ahead of it's opponent and is in 103rd place in the FIFA rankings. These are the facts, even if they are more marginal, but in this case in the last six years we see constant progress in Tajikistan performance, which is an indication that they are working in the right direction for the development of football. Also Tajikistan manage to win this tournament last year.