Shlomo Ginzburg, who was known by his nickname of “Mila” immigrated to Isarel when he was a 4 year old from Kiev and at the age of 10 was enrolled in the Achad Ha’Am Football School.
At 15, Mila was included in the Southern District National Team which included players from Maccabi Rehovot, Ness Ziona, Rishon Le’Zion and Gadera that played in the 1935 Maccabiah Games and also included the Maccabi youth club. Mila played another season with the squad that featured in the Maccabiah and a year later he joined Maccabi Shimon named for former footballer Shimon Tabak z’l. When Maccabi Tel Aviv returned from the United States, Mila was invited to play for the First Team where he played with some of the stars which included Donfeld, Yakov Zliblinski, Lieberman, Panetz, Neufeld, Menachem Merimovitch, Reznik, Moshe Beit HaLevi, Alsander, Sidi and Shlomzon.
Mila filled a number of roles and in his debut against Maccabi Petah Tikva played left back. However, due to his stunningly strong kick the coach moved him to the striker position. His first international contest was played against Romanian side Timisoara as Maccabi fell 3:4, however, Mila did score a goal. That same season, he won the league championship and also played in matches versus the likes of Wien and Admira from Austria.
As a 21 year old, Mila joined Maccabi as they travelled to Australia, a trip that began on May 24, 1939 and ended on September 28 of that same year. Mila played with some of the great strikers of the generation such as Gael Machlis, Avraham Schneidrovich and Peri Neufeld. Ginzburg scored 5 goals on the trip as one of the markers was a “goal of a lifetime” which was the winning goal against the Australia National Team at the Grand Cricket Stadium in Sydney in front of over 45,000 fans. “It was the nicest goal I ever scored,” Mila explains to journalist Yehoshua Kahana in a 1960 interview, “Gael Machlis sent me a pass and I launched a scorcher from 20 meters as the ball went from post to post until it found its way into the back of the goal.”
