The 1940 association football match between the national teams of Mandatory Palestine and Lebanon was the latter's first official international match, and the former's last before they became the Israel national team after 1948. The match took place on 27 April 1940 at the Maccabiah Stadium in Tel Aviv. Officiated by John Blackwell of the British Army, the game was watched by 10,000 spectators and ended in a 5–1 victory for the home side.
Mandatory Palestine scored in the second minute of the game, doubling their lead 10 minutes later with a penalty kick. Two more goals by the home side meant the first half ended 4–0. Mandatory Palestine's forced substitution at half-time due to injury hampered their control of the game and in the fifth minute of the second half, Lebanese forward Camille Cordahi scored to become Lebanon's first official international goalscorer. Werner Kaspi scored his second goal of the game in the 60th minute, with the match ending 5–1.
Lebanon's next official games were all friendlies against Syria, one in 1942 and two in 1947. In 1948 the Mandatory Palestine national team formally became the Israel national team, with the establishment of the State of Israel. They played their next official game in a friendly against Cyprus in 1949. Out of Lebanon's 11 players, six went on to play at least one more international game. Shalom Shalomzon was the only Mandatory Palestine player to make another international appearance.
Background
During the 1930s, Lebanon was a regular destination for friendly tours by football clubs in Mandatory Palestine. Teams such as Maccabi Tel Aviv, Maccabi Petah Tikva, and Maccabi Haifa regularly played teams from Beirut, Tyre, and Sidon. At the end of 1939, Lebanese Football Association (LFA) chairman Jamil Sawaya visited family in Jerusalem and Jaffa. Sawaya had friendly relations with several presidents of Palestinian football clubs, especially with the president of the Palestine Football Association (PFA). During his visit to Jerusalem, Sawaya met with the PFA president where they arranged a friendly match between the national teams of Lebanon and Mandatory Palestine in Tel Aviv.
Plans were announced in late March 1940 for a four-team football tournament with the national teams of Mandatory Palestine and Lebanon, and teams from the British Army in Palestine and the French Army in Lebanon. However, with the two armies put on alert in mid-April in anticipation of the Battle of France, the tournament was called off and only the match between Mandatory Palestine and Lebanon went ahead.
The game was set for 27 April 1940 at the Maccabiah Stadium, located on the banks of the Yarkon River estuary in Tel Aviv. On the eve of the game, the Mandatory Palestine players, mostly Jewish, were invited to tea and cake at a café on Rothschild Boulevard. They were told that each player had to go to the locker room at the stadium on their own. The players did not train for the game and, in the small dressing room, 14 received the light-blue-and-white kit.
Arthur Baar, an Austrian football coach, was in charge of selecting the Mandatory Palestine team, sending out the call-ups to the players. Baar became the de facto coach as Egon Pollak, the team's coach at that point, was spending time in Australia. On the day of the match, Baar invited Armin Weiss, Maccabi Tel Aviv's coach, to serve as the acting coach of the game. Weiss accepted the task, giving the Palestinian players a pre-match talk, and instructing them from the sidelines during the match.
Match
The match was Lebanon's first official international game, and proved to be Mandatory Palestine's last. Mandatory Palestine had previously played and lost four official games, all FIFA World Cup qualifiers (two in 1934 and two in 1938). Lebanon, on the other hand, had only played a few unofficial games prior, against clubs from Romania (CA Timișoara and Unirea Tricolor București) and Austria (Admira Vienna). The stadium was decorated with the flags of both nations, and around 10,000 spectators came to watch, many of whom were British. The referee was John Blackwell of the British Army.