Why are each World Cup group’s last games played at the same time? Look back 40 years
As the United States winds up World Cup group play with Iran on Tuesday, the other two teams in Group B, England and Wales, will kick off their final group games. Earlier Tuesday, Group A will end with the Netherlands playing Qatar the same time as Ecuador plays Senegal.
What gives? For a week, each World Cup group game received its own spotlight. But, Tuesday through Friday, each of the eight World Cup group’s will play its final two games simultaneously, forcing you to flip back-and-forth if you want to keep up with each game. And, if you have become a World Cup-phile, you will be a-flippin’ because only France, Brazil and Portugal have secured spots into the next round.
There’s a reason for this. Blame Austria, Algeria, Germany (West Germany, that is), Chile (sort of) and what happened 40 years ago after one of the World Cup’s most stunning upsets.
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The Shock of Gijón and ‘The Disgrace of Gijón’
Two-time World Cup champion and defending European champion West Germany openly denigrated Algeria, its first opponents at the 1982 World Cup, hosted by Spain. One West German player even declared he would play while smoking a cigar. Before the match at Gijón, the Algerians smarted from such strutting arrogance toward them and African soccer. After the match, the Germans smarted from the humiliation of a 2-1 upset loss.
Austria beat Chile 1-0 in Group 2’s next game. Then, West Germany pounded Chile 4-1. The second round of games ended with Austria beating Algeria 2-0.
Until the 1994 World Cup, each win was worth two points in the group standings and a tie was worth one. So, going into the final group games, Austria had four points, West Germany and Algeria each had two and Chile had none. West Germany had, overall, a plus two goal differential (5-3) and Algeria was minus one (2-3). Austria was plus three (3-0).
On June 24, Algeria took a 3-0 lead on Chile and held on for a 3-2 win. The win gave Algeria four points, but the two late goals by Chile left Algeria’s goal differential at zero.
So, when West Germany and Austria took the field at Gijón on June 25, the possibilities rivaled a comic book multiverse. But, put in the simplest way: West Germany needed a win; Austria needed a win, a tie or a loss by less than three goals; Algeria needed either an Austria win or tie (Algeria and Austria to the next round) or a West Germany win by three goals or more (West Germany and Algeria advance).
West Germany’s Horst Hrubesch scored just after the 10-minute mark. A 1-0 West Germany win would put both Austria and West Germany through and Algeria out.
There would be only one more shot on goal during the match. By the second half, the slowed pace and lack of aggressive play from both sides infuriated everyone from Austrian play-by-play announcer Robert Seeger, who told viewers to turn their televisions off; to his German counterparts, who called it “disgraceful;” to Algerian fans, who waved money at the players.
The game ended 1-0, West Germany. It would be called “The Disgrace of Gijón” — and that’s in Germany.
Algeria lodged a protest with FIFA, but an investigation turned up no concrete evidence of the two teams truly colluding in a fix. To this day, many argue they cynically pulled the chute in the second half once they realized the score benefited each team.
But FIFA made one change — for future tournaments, the final group games would be played at the same time to reduce the chance of shenanigans.
