ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the results of a qualitative critical analysis of media discourses in the immediate aftermath of the German team's victory over Argentina. It points out how the renaissance of national sentiment and militaristic rhetoric in Germany may be understood in the context of German history and contemporary world politics. Yet also, the "left-liberal backlash" in other publications, which formulated explicit criticism toward said overly militaristic rhetoric, deserves careful attention. The metadiscursive discussion in leading German media can be understood as part of a negotiation about types and influences of metaphors in sports discourse, the conflation of politics and sports, and the purpose and impact of sports journalism in general. The warrior-hero-related vocabulary is in a wide sense militaristic, though terminology that explicitly relates to modern warfare is largely absent. The chapter also presents alternative versions of "victory narratives" in the aftermath of the German world cup title in 2014.
