It was June 25, 1982. It happened at Gijon in Spain. In the history of football this date is referred to as the day of disgrace. Disgrace at Gijon!

When Germany met Austria at the FIFA World Cup finals in the last first round group match at 17:15 hrs both teams had had sufficient time to calculate their group situation, as Algeria had defeated Chile 3-2 in their last match on the previous day. The German team was two points behind Algeria and Austria and needed a victory to progress to the second round, thanks to their superior goal tally. The Austrians could afford a defeat – but only by no more than two goals, otherwise the Algerians would move on. By the end of the day a “German-Austrian non-attacking pact” on the pitch ensured both teams progressed to the next round – to Algeria’s disadvantage.

During the exchange of shirts, the Austrian and German players did not yet suspect that they were to meet with a wave of outrage.

After Horst Hrubesch had put Germany ahead 1-0 in the 12th minute, both teams simultaneously shelved their attacking patterns and concentrated on pushing the ball around the centre circle. Eighty minutes of such play, with a few token attacks not followed through, and spectators were looking away.

Horst Hrubesch scored the winning goal in the 12th minute for Germany’s 1-0 win over Austria. Afterwards the disgrace of Gijon began…

The crowd became enraged, waved white handkerchiefs as a sign of cowardice, and shouted the praises of the eliminated Algerian team. Eberhard Stanjek, the commentator with Germany’s public TV channel ARD, remained silent for minutes to show his protest. “It is simply shameful what both teams did here. The end does not justify the means”, said Stanjek. At the same time his colleague Armin Hauffe commented on German radio: “The DFB owe everybody an explanation. The damage done to the reputation of football at this madhouse of unwillingness is massive.”

Policemen were forced to use truncheons to quell angry spectators attempting to storm the pitch. The world media was also outraged. A few newspapers later wrote of a “dirty piece of football Indecency” and of “an unbearable, scandalous football farce”. The Spanish paper “El Comercio” even put its report of the match on the page usually reserved for police stories. “Germany and Austria – two scoundrels” read the Spanish newspaper “Marca” the following day. Willi Schulz, 1966 FIFA World Cup silver medallist with the German team, wrote in the renowned Germany daily “Die Welt” about “crooks”, and demanded that Hans Kindermann, Chairman of the DFB Controlling Board, take immediate action to punish the German participants in this outrageous incident.

Germany and Austria, who had battled valiantly in the memorable FIFA World Cup match in Cordoba four years earlier, both moved on from Group 2 into the final round in utter disgrace. Algeria, however, had to return home. The word “fair play” had suddenly become a paradox of football history for the Africans.

The German players considered themselves “successful little innocents“. Wolfgang Dremmler tersely remarked: “We won after all, and bad matches are a risk spectators have to live with.” Austrian Hans Krankl reacted a bit more discriminately: “It hadn’t been agreed, but we did not want to do too much. In addition, we had a bad day. The Germans had to win, only: they didn’t have a good day either. They were scared. Then Hrubesch scored for 1-0. The Germans were really glad. They didn’t know that we were physically exhausted. After the break Paul Breitner came and said: ‘You don’t really want to equalise, do you? We have made it, you have made it. That’s it, finished’. We then said: okay. I understand that the people were outraged, particularly those in the stadium, because this match really wasn’t good to watch. You may push the ball around for five, ten minutes – Gijon, that was too much…”

The International Football Association, FIFA, later considered themselves losers. The unfortunate result was possible simply because it was the last match in the group and all other matches had already been played. Gijon had consequences: since 1982 FIFA arrange that all last group matches at the finals kick off simultaneously. Other competitions have followed suit.

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Enlightening ......nice one

We Need More of this type of post. Thanks OP.

Randerl: We Need More of this type of post. Thanks OP.

Insightful....

If it was about Seun's GF, Tonto Dike, U will see it on the FP.