In the first round, Austria had surprisingly won their group, ahead of Brazil even though they had lost to them.

A rather lacklustre West Germany had only finished second in their group, following two scoreless draws.

While the West German team still contained a number of players who had contributed to winning the 1974 World Cup, others had retired from the national team, being dissatisfied with the old-fashioned attitude of German Football Association (DFB) leaders and coach Helmut Schön, who at age 62 was about to retire after the tournament.

When the Dutch equalised in the 49th minute, the West Germans were still four goals shy of advancing to the final.

Hans Krankl then scored to put Austria ahead, but Bernd Hölzenbein equalised for West Germany a few minutes later.

West German fans could look forward to the third place match, until Krankl scored in the 87th minute to put Austria 3–2 ahead.

The Germans were not able to score in the remaining minutes, and, having also now been eliminated, joined the Austrians on their already pre-arranged flight home.

The commentary provided during the last few minutes of the game by Edi Finger, and in particular his exclamation following Krankl's goal "Tor!

Although the Cordoba game was not a World Cup final, in Austrian popular culture Finger's commentary is comparable with Herbert Zimmermann's famous commentary at the end of the 1954 World Cup Final,[1] between West Germany and Hungary, the game often called the Miracle of Bern.

Ladies and gentlemen, we are hugging each other here, Rippel, my colleague, graduate engineer Posch, we're kissing each other ... 3–2 to Austria, by our Krankl's magnificent goal.

"[2] West German fans were dissatisfied with the performance and attitude of their 1978 team, contrasted with the Austrians, who fought fiercely with their neighbours in a game that had no significance to Austria in terms of further progression in the tournament.

[3] With a new coach, Jupp Derwall, the West Germans went on to win the 1980 European championship.

[4] Then in 1982, at the next World Cup in Spain, West Germany and Austria met again, in a final group-stage game in Gijón.

Hence, after West Germany scored early, the two teams kicked the ball around aimlessly for the rest of the match, in stark contrast to 1978, and to worldwide howls of derision.

On this occasion, Germany defeated Austria 1–0 to qualify for the next round and knock the co-hosts out of the tournament.

[6] On 16 May 2008, exactly one month before the Euro 2008 group match between Austria and Germany, the Swiss performance artist Massimo Furlan [fr] staged a one-man re-enactment of the 1978 World Cup match between the sides in front of 2,500 spectators at Rapid Vienna's stadium.