In the 1930s, Calcio Danubiano, the specific football system played by the national teams and clubs from Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Austria, and also Central European football, including the teams of Italy and Yugoslavia, were the most admired football cultures in Europe, challenging even the traditionally leading position of English soccer. The Mitropa-Cup was the most popular football event at this time. While attempts to revive this Middle-European football culture in the fifties failed, the nineties show a clear resurrection of Middle-Europe in sports, for example in promoting the handball world championships for women by Austria and Hungary, or the applications for the football European Championships by Hungary and Austria, and for the Olympic Winter Games by Austria, Slovenia and Italy. On this basis it is important to discuss the historical and contemporary basis and foundations of the idea and importance of Central Europe in sports, especially in its cultural, political and economic conditions, and in terms of questions of hegemony in the light of the varying positions of Middle European football in media texts. In the end a persisting power of historical identities and sporting myths can be identified, although they are read and used in ever different ways.