AS SOON AS THE UNITED STATES had given up a last-gasp equalizer to Portugal on Sunday night, suspicions began to swirl. Given that a draw would see both Germany and the U.S. advance to the round of 16, would the two teams play for one in their Group G finale?

When asked about the possibility, Jurgen Klinsmann was categorical: no way.

“I don’t think we are made for draws, really except if it happens like tonight—two late goals, last seconds. I think both teams go into this game and they want to win the group.”

You could forgive the press gathered at the Portugal game for asking. After all, Joachim Low was Klinsmann’s assistant coach at the German national team from 2004 to 2006; the two men remain close friends. What about a simple phone call?

“There is no time for friendship calls,” said the U.S. coach. “This is all about business now. There will be no such call.”

Two teams colluding on a mutually beneficial result is a sensitive topic among Germans, for good reason: they’ve done it before, as Klinsmann acknowledged.

“You’re talking about a game that is decades ago. That is only a part of Germany’s history and not part of the United States’ history.”

Indeed, back in 1982 the U.S. Soccer Federation was still wandering through the soccer wilderness, absent from the World Cup after losing in the opening round of qualifying. Soccer superpower West Germany, meanwhile, took part in a match at the World Cup in Spain that would tar its reputation for years: “The Non-Aggression Pact of Gijon.”

The game in the northern Spanish port city port wasn’t a draw—the final score was a 1-0 win for West Germany over Austria. But the way the game played out made it clear the two sides had, at some stage, mutually agreed to stop trying to change the result.

West Germany had opened the tournament with a 2-1 loss to Algeria in its Group 2 opener. It was a massive shock: The Germans were the reigning European Champions and had breezed through qualifying. They needed to turn things around, and fast.

The Germans did so in the second group match, a thundering 4-1 win over Chile. FC Bayern star Karl-Heinz Rummenigge bagged a hat trick and Werder Bremen hitman Uwe Reinders added another before Chile got a consolation goal in the dying minutes. Good news also came the next day, when Austria beat Algeria 2-0.

German hopes took a hit three days later, though, as Algeria beat Chile 3-2—meaning the north African squad went level on points with Austria at the top of the group. West Germany now needed a win over Austria in its final group match to go through. This wasn’t a sure thing. Though the Germans had defeated Austria home and away in qualifying, the last time the two teams had played on the World Cup finals stage, in 1978, Austria was victorious.

West Germany’s only edge was goal difference heading into the match: It was at +2, better than Algeria’s, which was even, and only one behind Austria’s +3. That edge would prove telling in Gijon.

After just 10 minutes, Germany went on top. Horst Hrubesch, the hulking striker whose 27 goals for Hamburg had led the club to a 1982 Bundesliga title, bundled home a Pierre Littbarski cross from close range.

For another 15 minutes or so, Austria looked to level the score and West Germany attempted to extend its lead. But by the latter stages of the first half, it began to dawn on the players that precisely this result was all each side needed to advance to the second group stage, and eliminate Algeria. They began to play accordingly.

A number of extracts of the game exist on YouTube; they make for boring viewing. The Germans push the ball up the flank, think about crossing, think better of it, and play the ball back to the halfway line. The Austrians hit a half-hearted long ball up to their lone striker and concede possession. There are plenty of back passes to the keeper.

By the end of the match, the Spanish crowd is aghast, waving handkerchiefs, chanting and whistling. The play-by-play man in Germany calls it a “disgrace” and says it “stinks of collusion." The announcer calling the game in Austria had long since urged viewers to turn off their television sets. When the final whistle blows, the players’ celebrations seem baffling, and are met with jeers.

They were being cast as poor sports by fans back home, and FIFA and UEFA soon began talking about (and eventually following through on) plans to make sure that at future tournaments, group stage finales would be played simultaneously, so as to prevent another “disgrace” from happening again.

At the time though, West German players were defiant. “What do I care if Aunt Frieda back home kicks up a fuss?” asked Reinders. But their voices have long been drowned out by a deeper sense of shame.

Any time the “non-aggression pact” comes up, as it has again and again this week, prominent figures in the German game line up to condemn what happened. Günter Netzer called it “a scandal; deeply disappointing”; Rudi Voller has said it was “a black mark on German football”; and Franz Beckenbauer told BILD this week that the game had been “an awful kick-around, a disgrace for football.” One German football writer, Oliver Fritsch of die Zeit, even produced a personal essay on the game and how it helped teach him the meaning of right and wrong as an adolescent.

The Disgrace of Gijon’s only apologists remain the players involved, and even their defenses are muted.

“Football is dependent on results. That’s how it goes. You can’t prevent a match like that from happening again” wrote Felix Magath, today the coach of Fulham FC, then a midfielder who went the full 90 minutes for West Germany.

“As a coach, I demand that my players perform tactically in such a way as to deliver a desired result,” he said this week. “If you’re winning, you don’t need to take risks.”

Lothar Matthäus, who came on as a substitute for Karl-Heinz Rummenigge in the second half, said he didn’t know anything about a stitch-up.

“I was only 21 then, and not really one of the leaders on the team,” Matthaus told Bild. Paul Breitner was our leader, and he knew some of the Austrians well. I was confused at the time: whenever I would go forward, they’d whistle at me to come back and hold my position.”

Breitner himself told a German talk show in 2006 that there hadn’t been any collusion but rather a collective feeling on the part of both teams that they needed to “manage” the result.

Goalkeeper Toni Schumacher—who would, later in the tournament, further tar Germany’s reputation with a brutal tactical foul on Patrick Battiston in West Germany’s semifinal with France—admits the game made terrible viewing for fans, but he also denies that the Germans and the Austrians did a deal to secure the result. He went on to say that he thought the U.S. and Germany may find it hard to do otherwise.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw a result that helped both teams. I think it’ll be a draw,” he told the Express. "The way things stand at the outset is clear to both sides; you can’t get that out of your head.”

As Germans and Americans prepare to face off in Recife on Thursday, everyone associated with the game has sought to dismiss talk of playing for a draw, much less arranging one.

“Playing for a draw is never our thing,” said Germany defender Mats Hummels. His teammate Thomas Müller seemed downright annoyed when a journalist mentioned a possible new Gijon at the team press conference on Tuesday.

“How can I make this clear: playing for a draw is not an option for us,” he said. “This topic is finished.”

U.S. Soccer President Sunil Gulati said the Americans’ record of going for a win at all costs spoke for itself, considering how it closed out qualifying for the current World Cup against Panama, entering the game knowing its place in the tournament was secure.

“We’re playing in the 93rd minute, we had nothing to play for other than the American mentality, and we changed who qualified for the World Cup because of it—we put Mexico through,” said Gulati. Playing for a draw “is not the way the U.S. team plays.”

U.S. midfielder Jermaine Jones, ever the man for the practical and not afraid to speak plainly, had a slightly different message. He gave an interview to German broadcaster ZDF immediately after the Portugal game. The interviewer brought up the fact that both Germany and the U.S. needed only a point, and didn’t specifically mention Gijon, but the implication was there.

Jones cracked a little smile before saying, “We’re going to approach this in the right way. But, yeah, we want to advance and the Germans want to advance too.”

And that could be all it takes for this match to lose a little of its potential bite. We know that the American mentality is one of win at all costs. We know that Germans hate what happened in Gijon, as well as love how much Joachim Low (and Jurgen Klinsmann before him) has done to build a national team that plays positive soccer, attracting neutral fans in a way that German teams of the past never did.

But Low is under pressure to win a title after eight years in charge, and Klinsmann is desperate to get his team out of the group stage to prove to his long-term plan for U.S. Soccer is bearing fruit. Expect both teams to try and execute their winning game plans at the outset, but if the match is tied in the late going of the second half—especially if Ghana is winning big over Portugal in Brasilia, a scenario that could send the loser in USA-Germany home—some kind of “awful kick-around” could yet break out.

Matt Hermann is an anchor/producer at DW-TV and the host of the German football podcast Talking Fussball. Follow him on Twitter.