Like the Golden Team of Hungary 20 years later, Austria failed to lift the World Cup trophy, despite playing beautiful football.
Austria qualified for the 1938 FIFA World Cup finals, but they withdrew less than three months before the start of the tournament, after the March 1938 Anschluss to Nazi Germany.
The Austrian Soccer Federation dissolved and voluntarily integrated itself into the "Deutschen Reichsbund für Leibesübungen" that coordinated all sports in Nazi-Germany.
[5] For political reasons, German officials demanded that players from "Hitler's home state" play in the Germany national team, ordering coach Herberger to change the lineup on short notice.
He introduced a tougher style of play at the clubs ADO and Feyenoord, and managed the Netherlands national team in the 1978 FIFA World Cup, where they finished as runners-up for the second time in a row.