Brothers in arms? Portuguese and Brazilian news coverage of the 2010 World Cup draw

Apart from the ‘extraordinary’ status by virtue of their very large scale and periodicity, staged international cultural and sport mega-events such as the FIFA World Cup have not only been transformed into media events but have also recurrently constituted politically controversial occasions as sought-after symbol of nationhood and of international recognition. Previous research, however, has traditionally analyzed such mediatized global sport mega-events in terms of either the bidding processes to win the World Cup event or, in alternative, during the competition stage. This article tests whether sport, in general, and mega-events, in particular are becoming the sites for articulation of national identity, by looking at an understudied moment of these key events: the national reactions to the draw results. Based on a comparative frame analysis of a dozen of Portuguese (Ionline, Público, O Jogo, Record, Mais Futebol e Correio da Manhã) and Brazilian (UOL, Estadão, Jornal do Brasil, Globoesporte.com, Esporte Interativo, Terra Esportes) online and written press coverage of the eve and the aftermath of the December World Cup draw ceremony in Cape Town, this article aims at gauging how media of two countries with close historical and cultural ties but belonging to different political and press systems, depicted both their prospects to the competition and fact that were drawn together into the ‘Group of Death’ . While assessing the national orientation of the coverage in the two countries, this study goes against the ‘bordless world’ version of globalization which was expected to undermine home differences. Indeed, it concludes that instead of demising the nation-states, at a time marked by globalization and worldwide crisis, both national media representations of a global event with home implications were characterized by stereotyping of the ‘other’ and themselves, which confirms the traditional national values by the media when representing their own nation - concerning sport rivalry.