Discursive constructions of the Germany–Brazil semi-final match during the FIFA 2014 World Cup: The limits of football as a soft power resource

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe dreams of FIFA 2014 World Cup hosts, Brazil, of winning the tournament turned into a nightmare when the Brazilian national team was shellacked 7–1 by Germany in a semi-final played on July 8, 2014, at the Estadio Minerao in Belo Horizonte. This was not only Brazil's worst defeat in the country's footballing history, but also witnessed the highest number goals scored against a World Cup host nation. This seriously dented Brazil's reputation as a football champion – a critical component of the South American nation's soft power strategy, alongside its exotic culture, beautiful beaches, captivating music and rising economy. This article analyses discursive constructions of Brazil's loss against Germany in online user-generated comments published in four influential Western newspapers, to gain insights into the fragility of sport as a tool for enhancing global reputation and prestige. The four newspapers selected for the study are The Guardian and The Telegraph (United Kingdom), The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times (United States). The specific focus of this article is to understand the meanings online commentators attached to the Brazilian team's defeat and the possible impact of those meanings on Brazil's global reputation. Whether the discourses on the Brazilian national team's loss to Germany in the FIFA 2014 semi-final impair or repair the country's international reputation as a football giant, and consequently the implications for parlaying football as a soft power strategy, are the key concerns of this article. In other words, did discursive constructions on Brazil's massive defeat by Germany influence the preferences of other nations globally? Empirical data for this article were gleaned from user-generated comments which appeared below purposively sampled hard news articles published in the four newspapers between July 8 and 9, 2014. The user-generated comments were qualitatively content analysed and further subjected to discourse analysis. The article argues that the discursive constructions of Brazil's loss in user-generated comments invoke negative meanings that trump the ‘feel-good’ effects of hosting a mega sports event such as the FIFA World Cup, thereby undercutting Brazil's prestige as a footballing nation. The article further argues that the negative sentiment of sadness which permeated Brazilian society after the national team's shock defeat demonstrates the vulnerability of sport in general and football in particular, as soft power resources for enhancing a nation's global image, particularly in the age of the information revolution.