Before a ball was kicked, this match already had nicknames. Some deemed it a telltale biscotto – an Italian classic implying something that has to be baked twice; one cooperating with the other. Or maybe you preferred the “Disgrace of Kansas City”, a new spin on the “Disgrace of Gijón”, the 1982 World Cup match in which West Germany settled for a 1-0 win over Austria in a result that qualified both teams for the knockout round while eliminating Algeria.

But what unfolded here was something else altogether. A new classic of the genre. Call it the “Missouri Compromise” if you must, but even that somehow underplays the drama and wild swings of momentum that exhausted the players and coaches who took part, delighting the fans who were lucky enough to witness it. On a steamy night in the American midwest, Algeria and Austria battled gamely, showing heart and desire for most if not all 90-plus minutes en route to a back-and-forth 3-3 draw that qualified both teams for the knockout round.

Their continued World Cup journeys came at the expense of Iran, who just needed a winner – any winner – to emerge in this wild match to keep their tournament alive. To have been a fly on the wall of their Tijuana hotel, watching as their World Cup fate teetered and tottered, their jubilation at Riyad Mahrez’s goal in the third minute of added time abruptly ended by a Sasa Kalajdzic header with practically the last action of the match.

“I couldn’t believe what happened in [the last] 120 seconds. I don’t even remember a match that had such a dramatic course,” Austria manager Ralf Rangnick said. “At the beginning of the match, if anyone had said that it would be 3-3 , nobody would have believed that. Somebody would have won an incredible bet. You’d have anticipated 0-0 or 1-1. I can’t believe it.”

For Austria, this marks the first time they have qualified for the second round of a World Cup since that fateful 1982 tournament. Algeria, meanwhile, return to the knockout stage in their return to the World Cup, having gone out in the last 16 in 2014.

In the build-up, this match was to many a perfect illustration of the folly of Fifa’s expansion to 48 teams. Such an expansion requires a ranking of third-place teams, where games between group foes have an impact on teams like Iran, who had already played and must simply wait and watch. With both teams advancing with a draw, there were fears for the worst – that the teams might come out for a casual kickabout instead of a high-intensity World Cup match. Those fears, it turned out, were unfounded.

“I don’t think anyone can assume that [this] was a friendship that was somehow connected,” Rangnick said. “It is a pity for Iran.”

“It was football that won,” agreed Algeria manager Vladimir Petkovic. “3-2, [then] 3-3 says it all. There was a great will to win.”

The players’ efforts were indeed commendable, especially on one of Kansas City’s trademark sticky nights. The late kick-off, at 9pm local time, did little to quell the thick humidity even as the sun fully receded. There were occasional, much welcome breezes through the stands, but they were not occasional enough to improve a swamp-like atmosphere.

At the beginning, it was Algeria who looked like they were running in muck as Austria struck first in the 28th minute through Marko Arnautovic. David Alaba’s pinpoint lofted service from the back found the striker closing down on Algeria goalkeeper Oussama Benbot. The 37-year-old took an awkward touch, then a brilliant one with his toe to nudge the ball past Benbot and into the back of the net.

For the first of what would become many times in a manic affair, Austria seemed content with their lead and dropped back, seemingly inviting Algeria to counter. But while they may have foreseen that pressure would come, they could not have predicted the wacky nature of the equaliser.

Again, a long ball from the back set up the chance, but this one surprisingly caromed off the corner flag to stay in play, with Austria’s Phillipp Mwene tussling with Mahrez, eventually dragging him down by his ankles in a tackle straight out of the NFL games that usually populate this grand old coliseum. The referee, in perhaps the best call of the night, waved play on, allowing right back Rafik Belghali to pounce on the loose ball, take a deflected shot, then collect the rebound, work inside the box, and finish with power into the roof of the net at the near post.

Austria made three changes at half-time, including Arnautovic, moves that Ragnick said were made to create “more pressure”. In the 55th minute, Austria found another breakthrough from a long ball, this time to Konrad Laimer on the right flank. The Bayern Munich man made easy work of his defender at midfield and drove toward the Algerian penalty area. His cutback found Marcel Sabitzer alone at the far post, and he finished easily.

The pattern repeated, with Austria seeming to sink just as desperation drove Algeria forward. A period of pressure and possession followed, capped off by Mahrez’s 60th-minute equaliser. The goal arrived in eerily similar fashion as Sabitzer’s – this time with Algeria’s Houssem Aouar providing the killer run and cutback for a finish, easily applied past a stranded goalkeeper.

The teams entered the second-half hydration break having produced four goals between them to entertain the sellout crowd of 69,045. The majority cheered for Algeria – appropriate given the close connection the team has forged with their training home of nearby Lawrence, Kansas.

From there, for the first time, the first semblance of collusion began to crop up. Sideways passes followed sideways passes. The fans did the wave, and whistled at the players for their complacency. It seemed as if a truce had been agreed.

“For about 15 minutes, there was a time in which both squads were a little bit passive,” Petkovic admitted. “But this was not because we planned it that way, rather because we wanted to test the opponent, and get a feel for the opponent, and then prevail.”

Top cap this stalemate, Algeria completed a five-minute, 34-second long period of uninterrupted possession, almost all of it in the middle third, a full 109 passes of nothingness.

But then there was that forward pass. And there was Mahrez again. The 35-year-old legend of his country popped up to finish smartly and send the majority Algerian support into hysterics. Surely, it had been won. Certainly, Iran must have thought, they’d live to fight another day.

And then, there was Kalajdzic. The 28-year-old Wolves striker had only just come on for Mwene the minute before, but rose to meet a desperation header across the face of goal – the kind of goal Rangnick said they could train for 1,000 times and never finish off. This time, he did.

“I need to be pinched, to wake up from a dream,” he said. Iran, meanwhile, had moved to the realm of nightmare.