When a do-or-die game was just that

GROUP B FOCUS ON AUSTRIA: Paddy Agnewrecalls an Austrian legend and his part in one painful episode of an eventful history between this evening's rivals.

TO SAY Austria v Germany is a game with a history is to say the very least. As the Euro 2008 host nation prepares for a vital first-round clash in Vienna today with its powerful neighbour and rival, not many will choose to recall a previous Austria v Germany game at the old Prater, back in 1938.

Austria had just experienced the Anschluss: enforced annexation by Hitler's Germany. As an expression of the new-found Austro-German "unity", the national football teams of both countries were dissolved into one all-powerful Teutonic XI.

Before this happened, however, it was decided Austria and Germany would play a prestige friendly in Vienna by way of celebrating their new "united" status. The problem was, however, that Austria were a handy little side in those days, not for nothing known as the Wundermannschaft.

Captained by the Austria Vienna player Matthias Sindelar, also known as "The Paper Man" because of his slight physique, they had sprung one of the big surprises of the 1934 World Cup in Italy, beating Hungary in a bruising quarter-final. Austria then went on to lose to Italy in a controversial semi-final in which the host nation - surprise, surprise - appeared to benefit from favourable refereeing.

Remember, that was a World Cup Il Duce Mussolini was particularly keen to win.

Adolf Hitler, too, understood the symbolic significance of football success. So, he and the Nazi hierarchy were not amused when Austria won that 1938 friendly, thanks to a goal from the richly talented Sindelar. It was bad enough that he had beaten Germany but the Austrian captain made things much worse when opting to publicly defy the Nazi regime by refusing to give the Nazi salute during the post-match ceremonials.

Sindelar compounded that rejection of the Nazi ideal by going on to refuse to play for the new, "united" German team at the 1938 World Cup in France, claiming he was too old (to be fair this was arguably true; he was by now 35).

His rejection of the Nazi regime, inevitably, brought consequences. He was put under close surveillance by the Gestapo, Hitler's secret police, and Nazi sympathisers destroyed a Viennese café he owned.

Much admired in those days by the Italian football establishment, Sindelar was not only friendly with the great Italian coach Vittorio Pozzo but, during one of his many visits to Italy, he met the Milanese teacher Camilla Castagnola. Some reports suggested, probably erroneously, that Camilla was of Jewish descent.

For their own purposes, the Nazis tried to prove Sindelar too was a Jew, notwithstanding that he was the son of a poor Catholic Czech blacksmith, Jan Sindelar, who had moved from his native Moravia to Vienna in 1905 when Matthias was just two years old.

In January 1939, Matthias and Camilla were found dead in their Vienna apartment. Their death immediately prompted suspicion, the newspaper Kronen Zeitung commenting: "Everything points towards this great man having become the victim of murder through poisoning."

The coroner concluded, however, the couple had died accidentally from carbon monoxide poisoning probably from a defective gas stove in their flat.

In a BBC documentary in 2000, though, Egon Ubrich, a lifelong friend of Sindelar, claimed local officials had been bribed to falsify the details of his death so the player might be given a state funeral. Under Nazi legislation, a state funeral was not possible where there was the suspicion of foul play, something that could not be ruled out in Sindelar's case.

Thus the way was cleared for the state funeral of the most popular Austrian player of his day, a funeral attended by some 40,000 mourners.

Sindelar's death - which prompted more than 15,000 people to send telegrams of condolence to his club, Austria Vienna - remains an unsolved mystery and a reminder of days when Austria v Germany was all too literally a "do or die" affair.

The Austrian poet Friedrich Torberg later dedicated a poem, Auf den Tod eines Fussballers (on the death of a footballer), to the player in which he claimed Sindelar had taken his own life out of despair at the Anschluss and subsequent Nazi-takeover. Others argue that Sindelar was murdered by the Nazis. Others say he was simply the victim of a tragic accident.

What everybody seems to agree on, however, is that Sindelar was a great player, perhaps Austria's best ever.

As they head into this evening's mission impossible, the Austrians might take some inspiration from the memory of "The Paper Man". Given the balance of power in today's football world, this current Austrian side clearly needs all the help it can get.