But the championship was not all for Rapid – they met Wacker (Innsbuck) at the Cup final and promptly destroyed it, winning both legs : 3-0 and 5-0. Not not even a trace of a challenge.
Wacker lost a second consecutive Cup final, which was rather depressing for them, but also represented the real situation: there were only two strong teams in the country and no other was even close. Unfortunately, Wacker was already in decline – the squad amply shows it: only aging Hattenberger was significant player and that mostly in the past. Compared to the leading team, Wacker had rather anonymous squad, even the foreigners were second rate: the 32-years old Yugoslav goalkeeper Fuad Djulic played for lowly Borac (Banja Luka) before joining Wacker. The 27-years old West German libero Wesly Schenk failed to impress Bayern (Munchen) and before coming to Innsbruck played lower level football for MTV Ingolstadt. The only consolation for Wacker was that they were going to play in the Cup Winners Cup as losing finalists.
Rapid celebrated a double. Standing from left: coach Baric, Herbert Feurer, Johann Krankl, Zinchenko, Kurt Garger, Bernd Krauss, Johann Pregesbauer, Perovic, Winkler (?), assistant coach Grausam, assistant coach Muller.
First row: Rudolf Weinhofer, Gerald Willfurth, Herbert Weber, Hofmann, Reinhard Kienast, Leo Lainer, Christian Keglevits, Sulak (?), Antonin Panenka.
One of the strikers – Petar Brucic – is missing, but only on the photo. Otto Baric did excellent job building and maintaining this vintage and no wonder Rapid was winning. The Soviet import Zinchenko was on his way out and played little by now, but Krankl and Panenka lead the team with inspiration and class. They were getting old, but their teammates were strong support: Feurer, Weber, Kienast, the naturalized West German Krauss, and exciting Keglevits all played for Austria. Petar Brucic completed explosive trio of strikers. Panenka created opportunities. Weber and Krauss – solid defense in front of Feurer, who may have been a back-up of Concilia in the national team, but he was considerably younger than his illustrious rival. Already Baric was able to improve the squad with careful additions and inevitable transfer of Keglevits was not something to fear. In a way, Rapid was in better situation than Austria (Vienna), which needed to start rebuilding – Rapid needed only fine managing of transfers