Estonia W

The Republic of Estonia (1918–1940)

Estonians were introduced to the game of football by English sailors in the first years of the 20th century, when the land was still part of the Russian Empire. The national team was formed after the war of independence (1918–1920). It played its first match on 17 October 1920 in Helsinki, Finland which ended in a 6–0 defeat. The game took place on a grass surface, which was a first for the Estonians. The Estonian Football Association was founded on 14 December 1921 and affiliated with FIFA in 1923 joining Yugoslavia, Latvia, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Turkey and Uruguay.

Estonia's only participation in a major tournament took place at the 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris. Estonians lost their only match in the tournament to the United States 1–0.

The Estonian league season usually lasted from the end of May to September. In 1928 the first Baltic football contest was held involving all three nations, it was held nine times during this period. Four of them were held in Latvia, two in Estonia and three in Lithuania. Estonia was particularly notable for winning the edition of the tournament in 1938. In the crucial meeting between them and Latvia at the Kadrioru Stadium, 2,000 out of the 12,000 spectators were Latvians.

Estonia's first FIFA World Cup qualifying match took place on 11 June 1933 in Stockholm, Sweden, which ended with a Swedish 6–2 win. This match was also the world's first FIFA world cup qualifying match. Since later on Sweden also defeated Lithuania, the match between Estonia and Lithuania was cancelled, because Sweden had already won the group.

Estonia's first points in the FIFA World Cup qualifying rounds were gained in 1938, playing the qualification matches in 1937, the third edition of the tournament. At the time teams would play each other once in each group. Estonia were in group one, drawn with Germany, Sweden and Finland. In their first match against Sweden, the team went 2–0 up even before the game reached five minutes of play, only to lose 7–2. This was then followed up with a 1–0 success against Finland in which Richard Kuremaa scored the only goal of the game in the 56th minute. Qualification was completed with a 4–1 defeat against Germany, despite a goal from Georg Siimenson taking the teams in at half time with a 1–0 lead for the Estonians. As a result, Estonia failed to qualify for the World Cup.

The team's biggest win came on 26 July 1928 which was a 6–0 success against Lithuania in Tallinn, meanwhile their biggest defeat came on 11 August 1922 which was a 10–2 loss to Finland. Out of the team's head coaches before the Second World War, seven of them were Hungarian with Antal Mally taking this position twice. There were four foreign coaches (three Hungarians and one Austrian), while the first Estonian national team was coached by Albert Vollrat in 1932. Coaches also played for several seasons, who also determined the composition of the football association.

Players were mostly in Tallinn clubs, such as TJK, Sport, Kalev and Tallinn Estonia. The republic's most capped players were goalkeeper Evald Tipner (67) and the outfield players Eugen Einmann (65), Eduard Ellman-Eelma (58) and Karl-Rudolf Silberg-Sillak (52). Top goal scorers were Ellman-Eelma (21 goals in 65 matches), Richard Kuremaa (18/42), Arnold Pihlak (17/44), Georg Siimenson (14/42) and Friedrich Karm (9/13). Players received small pay for their contributions – 5 Estonian krooni in 1938. The Baltic tournament victory was 50 krooni.

On 18 July 1940 the team played their last official game as an independent nation for more than half a century. The game was played at the Kadrioru Stadium and was a 2–1 victory against Latvia.

World War II and Soviet occupation (1940–1991)

In 1940, the Stalinist Soviet Union invaded and occupied Estonia and, in August 1940, when Estonia was annexed into the USSR, the national team ceased to exist along with the independent country. During German occupation (1941–1944), the team was revived and they played two unofficial friendlies (in Riga 0–4 and in Tallinn 1–8), but only few players remained from the pre-war era. When Soviet troops invaded Estonia again in 1944, some of the best footballers (Richard Kuremaa, Elmar Tepp, Valter Neeris, etc.) were mobilised; some fled to west. Many ex-nationals (Arnold Pihlak, Arnold Laasner, etc.) were in Estonia's team in Geislingen's refugee camp.