Jingoism, but little war, ahead of Germany v England classic

By John Bagratuni Jun 26, 2010, 12:03 GMT

Hamburg - World War II was only mentioned briefly but the tabloids in Germany and England still had a field day on the eve of Sunday's clash between the two football rivals at the World Cup.

The Sun's front-page photo showed the Germany team during their Friday safari trip on a caged platform of a truck, with three lions milling around in front of them.

'Germans terrified of Three Lions,' screamed the headline, referring the Three Lions name used for the England team.

'England's World Cup rivals Germany looked a bunch of scaredy cats when they saw three lions in South Africa yesterday. Perhaps it reminded them of the mauling they face tomorrow from boss Fabio Capello's goal-hungry men,' The Sun said.

Germany coach Joachim Loew, for his part, insisted on Friday that 'no player was eaten by lions' but The Sun's back page issued another sting in form of the famous Munich scoreboard from the 2001 World Cup qualifier that England won 5-1.

'Look at this and do it again', said the headline.

Not to be outdone, Germany's Bild banned all of the normally frequent and popular anglicisms from its Saturday edition.

'Bild are already kicking the English out today! There is no English word in this edition!' Bild said.

Words like 'top' and 'flop' were x-ed out and replaced by German equivalents, while 'news' became the German 'Nachrichten.'

Bild also compared 'our good boys' with the 'English louts,' listing over half a page all English wrongdoings ranging from the John Terry sex affair to Steven Gerrard's nightclub brawl with a DJ.

It mocked English penalty-shooting abilities and splashed '11 Commandments for the victory' on the front page.

Back in England, the Daily Star could not resist a minor WWII reference when it titled 'It's war' and said, 'We will fight jeering Jerries on the pitches' next to a picture of striker Wayne Rooney fists up and with a steel helmet on his head.

But overall the tone was more moderate than ahead of the 1990 World Cup semi-finals and even more than ahead of the Euro 1996 semi in London - both of which Germany won on penalties.

'Achtung! Surrender! For You Fritz, ze Euro 96 Championship is over,' the Daily Mirror had infamously titled 14 years ago, only to issue an apology later.

For Loew, the relative absence of war-related phrases was only natural and a good thing.

'It's high time to forget about that. We live in 2010 and in a unified Europe,' Loew told Friday's press briefing.

Back in England, not everyone was happy with another stormy buildup either.

Lambasting the tabloids, a blog in The Guardian spoke of 'jingoism for dummies' but then shared the common belief that all the English jingoism is from their inferior World Cup track record compared with Germany.

'God almighty, are we this desperate? Yes. Yes we are this desperate,' said The Guardian.