During World War II, in 1940, Estonia was invaded and occupied by the Soviet Union, and there was no possibility of fielding a national football team again until the country restored full independence in August 1991.

After the end of the 1944–1991 Soviet occupation, Estonia's first FIFA-recognised international match was with Slovenia on 3 June 1992, a 1–1 draw at home in Tallinn.

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.

[7] 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 first FIFA World Cup qualifying match took place on 11 June 1933 in Stockholm, Sweden, which ended with a Swedish 6–2 win.

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.

[12] 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.

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.

According to Uno Piir, the first national team manager after Estonia restored independence in 1991, the reason for football's downfall in Soviet-occupied Estonia was the inability to create a club competitive at the level of the Soviet Union's top clubs, hence the decrease in audience and the favouring of other sports by the governing bodies of sports.

63 players made a public addressing (Päevaleht, 24 April 1990) calling out the football governing bodies to only select the descendants of Estonians, leaving out immigrants who came to Estonia after World War II.

Estonia restored its full independence on 20 August 1991, and returned to international football when the team debuted in the Baltic tournament which took place in Lithuania in November 1991.

For the first time [citation needed], non-citizen players Andrei Borissov and Sergei Bragin were allowed to represent Estonia in the national team.

On 5 December 1991 the EFA decided to take part in 1994 FIFA World Cup qualification tournament despite financial difficulties, the poor state of the Kadrioru Stadium and the inexperience of the national team.

His first victory was achieved at the fifth attempt in October 1996, when they defeated Belarus at the Kadriorg Stadium in a 1998 World Cup qualifier with a goal from Hohlov-Simson.

Reasons for the original postponement of the game was that the Scottish team trained at the Kadriorg the night before, finding the floodlighting inadequate.

This time round the Estonians recorded three wins and two draws in their group, with fifteen goals scored and seventeen conceded.

They were taken over this time by Tarmo Rüütli (who was replaced by caretaker Aivar Lillevere for two games), who was appointed until autumn 2000, and seen the team through their qualifying group for the 2002 FIFA World Cup.

After the departure of Rüütli and Lillevere's two game stint as caretaker manager, the Estonian Football Association made an agreement with Dutchman Arno Pijpers.

Much attention was attracted the day after the international friendly, with the Estonian FA announcing that coach Rüütli's contract was to be extended to 2011.

Suspicion of match manipulation was raised when a Hungarian referee gave four disputable penalties, being equally distributed between the two sides.

[51] This was followed by a period of poor form, which began with an unofficial friendly game loss to the Basque Country, qualifying defeats to Italy and the Faroe Islands then followed, before a tour of South America saw the team lose to Chile and Uruguay.

[52] Four days later, Serbia failed to beat Slovenia, thus Estonia entered a qualifying play-off against the Republic of Ireland with the first leg in Tallinn.

On Tuesday, 28 March 2017, Estonia gained one of the most famous wins in their history as they beat Croatia 3–0 at home in an international friendly.

1992–2000 Estonia have also staged friendly matches away from Tallinn in Kohtla-Järve, Kuressaare, Narva, Pärnu, Rakvere, Tartu, Valga and Viljandi.

[63] Below is a timeline of how the home kit colours have changed through time: Estonia's main supporters group of that of the Jalgpallihaigla (English: Football Hospital), with over 600 members.

A busy away journey took place in October 2007, when at Wembley Stadium for the European championship qualifier with England a crowd of two thousand Estonian fans were in attendance.

In 1938 which was the decisive meeting of the Baltic Cup tournament hosts and Latvia, a total of 12,000 spectators gathered at the Kadriorg Stadium of which 2,000 Latvians.

Win Draw Loss Fixture The following players were called up for the UEFA Nations League matches against Azerbaijan and Slovakia in November 2024.

INJ Withdrew due to injury RET Retired from the national team Estonia's only participation in a major tournament was at the 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris, France.

Coached by Hungarian Ferenc Kónya, Estonia's participation was limited to a single match in the first round as the team lost 0–1 to the United States, with Andy Straden scoring the winning goal from the penalty spot in the 15th minute.