Fansided

Every World Cup national team nickname, ranked with minimal explanation

By Shea Corrigan

TOPSHOT - Colombia's midfielder Carlos Sanchez (C) celebrates at the end of the Russia 2018 World Cup Group H football match between Senegal and Colombia at the Samara Arena in Samara on June 28, 2018. (Photo by Luis Acosta / AFP) / RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE - NO MOBILE PUSH ALERTS/DOWNLOADS (Photo credit should read LUIS ACOSTA/AFP/Getty Images)
TOPSHOT - Colombia's midfielder Carlos Sanchez (C) celebrates at the end of the Russia 2018 World Cup Group H football match between Senegal and Colombia at the Samara Arena in Samara on June 28, 2018. (Photo by Luis Acosta / AFP) / RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE - NO MOBILE PUSH ALERTS/DOWNLOADS (Photo credit should read LUIS ACOSTA/AFP/Getty Images) /
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Lions and eagles and coffeemakers, oh my.

As an avowed Senegal fan of [checks calendar] two weeks, I was distraught to discover before the team’s Group H match-up that the team they were playing (Colombia) had an extremely cool nickname: Los Cafeteros, the coffeemakers (or coffee growers, if you prefer). I was conflicted: I desperately wanted Senegal to advance, along with my other Group H darling, Japan — another team I cannot articulate my affection for beyond, idk, I just like them? — but I also wanted to keep rooting for Los Cafeteros.

In any case, Colombia won 1-0 and Poland won 0-1 and thanks to the various nuance and endless good judgment of FIFA, that meant Colombia advanced outright and Japan advanced on account of fewer yellow cards than Senegal. While that all went down, however, I took the opportunity to look up every single other World-Cup-qualifying national team’s nickname and proceeded to rank them according to my whims.

Flag and/or jersey color-based nicknames are the lowest form of national team nickname, somehow even lower than nicknaming your national team some variation of “the national team.” And yet. There is one team (still in the tournament!) that somehow has an even worse nickname.

For teams with multiple nicknames listed on Wikipedia, I’ve gone with the coolest of the three, because I am do not follow national team soccer fandom well enough nor do I have the time to find out which is most prevalent or popular.

In any case, here are the best World Cup national team nicknames, with extremely sparse explanation:

    1. Croatia, Vatreni (The Blazers): I was honestly taken aback with how cool this nickname is. I am extremely into it in both its original and translated form.
    2. Colombia, Los Cafeteros (The Coffeemakers): Obviously. Other nicknames for Colombia include La Fiebre Amarilla (The Yellow Fever), which is a reference to their yellow jerseys but still not exactly full of positive connotations in its English translation.
    3. Australia, Socceroos
    4. Egypt, الفراعنة (The Pharaohs)
    5. Portugal, Seleção das Quinas (The Navigators): There is a part of me that really wants a European team to go extremely self-aware if potentially in poor taste and call themselves The Colonizers, so that one day one of the national teams of the countries they colonized can beat them. The Navigators is very much not that, it’s like the Disney Pocahontas version of that, but it is still fun and different and I like it.
    6. Costa Rica, Los Ticos (The Costa Ricans): The translation is super lame but the abbreviated colloquialism for locals is easy enough for an English speaker to not-butcher that it remains a super strong nickname. La Sele (the Selection), Los Matacampeones (the Champion Killers).
    7. Panama, Los Canaleros (The Canal Men): a.k.a. La Marea Roja (The Red Tide)
    8. Nigeria, Super Eagles
    9. Saudi Arabia, الصقور الخضر, Al-Suqour Al-Akhdar, (Green Falcons): Much better than just Al-Akhdar (The Green). Also, falcons are cooler than eagles, but not cooler than super eagles.
    10. Morocco, أسود الأطلس, ’Esoud ’Al-’Atlas, Les Lions de l’Atlas (Lions of the Atlas): Lions are cool, but more importantly, being “of the Atlas” is cooler than being of a specific place. (Even if Atlas refers to the Atlas mountains.)
    11. Tunisia, نسور قرطاج , Les Aigles de Carthage (The Eagles of Carthage): Eagles of a specific place are cooler than lions of a specific place.
    12. Senegal, Les Lions de la Téranga (The Lions of the Teranga): See above.
    13. England, Three Lions: Three lions are fewer and therefore lesser than an unlisted number of lions that I just assume to be 11 lions.
    14. Switzerland, Nati (The National Team): Nati is short for Nationalmannschaft and I’m not even sure nicknaming your national team “the national team” qualifies as a nickname, but I’m sorry Nati is good.
    15. Spain, La Furia Roja (The Red Fury): Regrettably, a very badass nickname for a team I just can’t find it in myself to like. Other names for the Spanish national team include: La Roja (The Red) and La Furia (The Fury). If one of your nicknames is a color and the other is not, the power move is always to combine them.
    16. Serbia, Бели Орлови (White Eagles): See above.
    17. Poland, Orły (The Eagles): Poland’s other nickname is Biało-czerwoni, which means The Whites and Reds. Again, see above.
    18. Brazil, Canarinha (The Little Canary): Admittedly a very fun nickname but unfortunately its hard to get hype about canaries when there are falcons, eagles and super eagles in the sky.
    19. Korea Republic, 태극전사 (Taegeuk Warriors): Probably should be ranked higher, but here we are. Their other nickname is 붉은 악마 (Red Devils).
    20. Belgium, De Rode Duivels or Les Diables Rouges or Die Roten Teufel (The Red Devils): Extremely fun to have four linguistic options here, even if what you’re saying in any/all the languages is actually not that fun of a nickname. Too Duke, IMO.
    21. Iran, تیم ملی, Team Melli (The National Team): See “Switzerland, Nati.” Lame in theory, good in execution.
    22. Germany, Die Mannschaft (The Team): I’m under the impression this is the most commonly used nickname despite the excellent elf-adjacent options (Nationalelf for National Eleven and DFB-Elf  for DFB Eleven, whatever that means). Unfortunately, while phonetically very strong, it does not live up to the standards set by Nati and Team Melli.
    23. Russia, Sbornaya (The National Team)
    24. Iceland, Strákarnir okkar (Our Boys): I think I hate this.
    25. Mexico, El Tri (The Tri-Color): The best of the very lame color contingent.
    26. Sweden, Blågult (The Blue-Yellow): My two favorite colors.
    27. Argentina, La Albiceleste (The white and sky-blue): Tricky because it does not immediately sound like a color, but it is. Imagine how high they could have scored with Los Gauchos (the Cowmen) though.
    28. Japan,サムライ・ブル (Samurai Blue): Samurai helps, I guess.
    29. Peru, La Blanquirroja (The White and Red): a.k.a. Los Incas (The Incas)
    30. France, Les Bleus (The Blues)
    31. Uruguay, La Celeste (The Sky Blue)
    32. Denmark, Danish Dynamite: I don’t have good explanations for most of my soccer-related feelings and so it is with my intense overwhelming disgust with this nickname.

Moment of silence for the elite national team nicknames not present at the 2018 World Cup: Les Lions Indomptables (The Indomitable Lions, of Cameroon), the Piratiko (The Pirate Ship, of Greece), the Zmajevi (The Dragons, of Bosnia and Herzegovina), the Black Stars (of Ghana), Les Fennecs (The Desert Foxes, of Algeria), the Chipolopolo (the Copper Bullets) of Zambia, the Soccer Dolphins (Anguilla), the Jaguars (Belize), les Ecureuils (the Squirrels) of Benin, the Nature Boyz (with a z!) of the BVIs, the Spice Boyz (also with a z!) of Grenada, the Tebuan (The Wasps, of Brunei), the Blue Wolves of Mongolia, the Emerald Boys of Montserrat, Bafana Bafana (The Boys) of South Africa, the Soca Warriors (Trinidad and Tobago) and last but not least the Tartan Terriers of Scotland.

I think this settles the “is expansion good for the World Cup” debate.

Next: Best player on every team at the World Cup

Thank you for your time.

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