Disgrace of Gijón: World Cup Spain 1982 Part 2

We continue our story about the "Gijon scandal", and we arrived at the Austria-West German match, which was staged at El Molinón Stadium in the Spanish city of Gijon.

The Fateful Match

When both Austria and West Germany entered the field, all expectations were centered on a very intense and exciting match.

where the previous World Cup had brought Austria's first victory over Germany in decades, and with the match determining Germany's fate in the World Cup, tension prevailed among the masses.

The first ten minutes were very enthusiastic and carried a fierce and continuous attack by the Germans, and soon they all of which was translated into a goal in the 11th minute of the match, but after all this enthusiasm and offensive performance, the match quickly turned into a semi-cartoon form in fact,  where both teams were just passing the ball without actually trying to do anything, just a group of players standing in their places and passing the ball between their legs.

At the end of the first half, the two teams left the stadium with their players holding each other's hands, talking, and laughing together. On the other hand, the stands were very angry, apart from the fact that the Algerian fans were waving money as a sign that the match was undoubtedly sold out, In any case, the worst part of the match was probably the second half, which made the first half look very exciting against it, as the entire half witnessed only 3 shots, all from outside the area, and all very far from goal.

By the second half, the fans had reached the height of their anger, and with continuous and boring passes (with a correct passing percentage greater than 90%) that killed the half completely, the shouts and chants of that shame performance started from the stands, first from the Algerian fans, but later from the fans of the two teams. The chants included “Get out” and “Algeria deserves to qualify.” Soon, the stands united under one chant: “It is better that they kiss each other.”

The anger at the two teams’ performance was not limited to the fans in the stands.

Even the commentators on the match were very frustrated, with the German commentator saying that “what is happening on the pitch is shameful and has nothing to do with football,” while the Austrian commentator asked the audience to turn off the televisions, and he left the last minutes of the match without even a comment, but nothing changed the result, and Germany won 1-0 to eliminate Algeria from the tournament.

FIFA quickly held a meeting to discuss the issue, and after 3 and a half hours of discussion, the result of the meeting came out that there was no evidence of manipulation in that match, but the criticism directed at FIFA continued, especially with the fact that the Vice President of FIFA at the time, was the president of the German Football Association at the same time, and his name is Hermann Neuberger.

Although FIFA continued to deny the existence of any error or manipulation of the result of the Austria-West Germany match, it took one of the most important steps that really contributed to the development of the game, as the matches of the last round of the group stage in all major tournaments are always played at the same time.