German ‘gaucho’ victory dance draws fire

Commentators chided the German football team on Wednesday for gently mocking Argentina during a giant World Cup winners party in Berlin, an event that marked a rare exuberant celebration of national pride. 

In a country where strident patriotism is still largely taboo, newspapers said the young players’ ‘tasteless’ victory dance Tuesday reflected badly on the country. Six of the players including Mario Goetze, the sole scorer during Sunday’s 1-0 win over Argentina, performed a taunt often seen in stadium stands, on a stage set up behind the capital’s Brandenburg Gate before hundreds of thousands of flag-waving fans. 

‘This is how the gauchos (Argentines) walk, the gauchos walk like this,’ they sang, hunched over, to cheers from the crowd. Then they jumped up and chanted, ‘This is how the Germans walk, the Germans walk like this!’ and strutted around the stage. The word ‘gaucho’ is the South American equivalent of ‘cowboy’. Several German newspapers called the display of swagger before the world’s media a sour note after an otherwise pitch-perfect Cup. 

‘The victory celebration at the Brandenburg Gate turned into a gigantic own-goal. With a mean satire of the opponents in the final, the German world champions are squandering the image of an open-minded, tolerant nation,’ the conservative daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung fumed.