Political commentators think there is a lesson to be learnt from the way Germany goes about football. They agree in finding the German approach something more than just a game. It is also long term planning, tact, business and political marketing.

In Magyar Nemzet, Miklós Novák remarks that Germany has won the World Cup for the fourth time and has reached the final eight times, which means that there is something special about German football. And it is not the players, he continues. The number one scorer was not German, nor was the most valued player.  The Germans were the best as a team, which is the result of their long term planning and tenacity. One telling example is that they have only had ten coaches in the 100 year history of their national team, while most countries swap trainers every two or three years. Novák asks why Hungary has been unable to adapt the successful German model “at least in football”. (Hungary, once a major player in international football, has not qualified for the World Cup finals since 1986.)

In Népszabadság, Edit Inotai suggests that the German side is a major national public relations tool and its victory will help boost exports and investment abroad. The team has a special appeal abroad thanks to its colourful character; “with a half Tunisian (Khedira), a half Ghanaian (Boateng), a Turk (Özil), playing together with the Polish born Miroslav Klose and Schweinsteiger, the Bavarian.” They also did their best to win over the Brazilian public, by supporting local education establishments and orphanages, and made themselves popular despite trouncing the home side 7 – 1. Their victory was also the result of careful planning by a country that aspires to exert a growing influence on world affairs, by resorting to soft “weapons”, of which football is just one.