World Cup: Will German victory help Angela Merkel? --- Will Germany's triumph at the World Cup help Angela Merkel? -- She's been accused of shamelessly attaching herself to the footballers and their success, and the polls have shown upward blips of support for her as the team has progressed. But will it last? -- There's no doubt the World Cup has played well for her. Within an hour of the final whistle, there seemed to be a million tweets of her pictured in the middle of the sweaty, victorious team holding the trophy, the president of Germany beside her. -- She is, by all accounts, a genuine football fan, going to games way before she was politically important. But nowadays the right picture in the right place doesn't do any harm either. -- She was there when Germany thrashed Portugal 4-0 at the start and she was there at the final triumph when they lifted the World Cup. -- She's been described as the team's lucky charm. As she and the team's supporters sometimes put it: "Our twelfth man is a woman." -- But the political benefits of sporting success are not clear - or rather, they are complex and memory plays tricks. - More, Stephen Evans, BBC, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-28288449