New Zealanders tend to give a lot of silly names to their sports teams. The All Blacks are obviously the most well-known around the world but it wasn’t so long ago, only eight years, that the All Whites were gracing the FIFA World Cup in their unbeaten honour. The Blackcaps, the Silver Ferns, the Tall Blacks, the Kiwis, the Black Ferns, the White Ferns, the Football Ferns, the Wheel Blacks, the Black Sox, the Tall Ferns, the Black Sticks, the Black Jacks (lawn bowls, rather clever that one)… the list goes on a long way.

There are some familiar patterns emerging here. Pick a colour, any colour (as long as it’s white or black), and then tack on either a key aspect of your sport or a national icon. Seems a bit lacking in imagination when you list the lot of them but, guess what… these patterns are the same all around the world.

Football being football, the combination of so many cultures and languages with the absolute dominance of the sport in most countries, the nicknames that find their way to the World Cup are a wonderful array of good and bad. Most follow those same guidelines: jersey colour and either a national icon or a sporting reference. Some only need a colour, others need a whole lot of help.

All Whites is not the best nickname out there. It doesn’t even have a badass animal involved. But it wouldn’t be the worst at the 2018 World Cup and researching for a massive preview article I ended up down a deep rabbit hole looking at the different nicknames for the different teams, how they reflect the team and its national culture and all that. It got rather fascinating, so prepare yourself for the inevitable headlines and dive into these Wildcard Approved rankings…

32) Australia - The Socceroos

Terrible nickname and last on the rankings. Soccer? What is this, 1998? Most of the animal epithets are way up there on this list but there’s nothing cool about portmanteau words. They’re lazy and cheap. Sort it out Australia.

31) Poland - Bialo-Czerwoni

It doesn’t quite roll off the tongue and all it means is: White and Red. If you’re going to play it simple like that then it had better have some aesthetics to it. The Polish team is also known as ‘Orly’, apparently, which means Eagles or something. That’s a little better but still too Hotel California sounding.

30) Germany - Die Mannschaft

Which means The Team. Also known as Die Nationalmannschaft which means The National Team. Trust the Germans to stick to simple efficiency.

29) Switzerland - Nati Suisse

And trust the Swiss to do the same, this literally just means the Swiss National Team. Bit boring. Sucks to them that the USA didn’t qualify with their stupid USMNT moniker or else everybody else would have moved up a spot. There’s not a worse team handle than that, not even close.

28) Russia - Sbornaya

The National Team again. But this one’s funkier to pronounce.

27) Portugal - Seleção das Quinas

Slightly long, it means Selection of the Quinas, which means Selection of the Shields, which is too defensive to get excited about. Bonus points for being relevant to their style of play though – that’s more than England can say.

26) Denmark - The Danish Dynamite

Eh, sounds more like a tabloid headline than an actual team name that you can be proud of. But Peter Schmeichel stole the Great Dane tag so the rest of the country was left begging.

25) Japan - Blue Samurai

Got a colour and a national symbol so it follows the formula. But… there’s something missing here. Rather than coming off as intimidating and impressive, Blue Samurai instead sort of feels like a sub-genre of samurais.

24) Iran - Team Melli

It means National Team again but this one is silkier to the ears than those other ones. Plus it’s easy to rhyme with for those terrace chants, which is always an important factor.

23) Sweden - Blågult

Blue and Yellow. It’s an okay effort but you can’t help but feel the Swedes could have done better with this one. Finland are the Eagle Owls so Sweden needs to up their game.

22) Argentina - La Albiceleste

The White and Sky-Blues. It’s another colour-based one and it captures those iconic striped jerseys that the team is famous for. Basic stuff but it does the job.

21) Serbia - White Eagles

Presumably another one, like the All Whites, which might take you down a very different rabbit hole altogether when you follow the hashtags… but White Eagles is decent. Very decent.

20) Peru - La Blanquirroja

The Red and Whites but just like on the football field it’s not always the ability of the player that matters but the way they work together in unison. La Blanquirroja… beautiful.

19) France - Les Bleus

Classic, refined, vaguely conceited… very French in other words. Fits nicely.

18) Egypt - The Pharaohs

Full credit for getting something mildly creative that celebrates the famous history of the country. Perhaps a little bland and unspecific but a worthy slice of nomenclature all the same.

17) Belgium - The Red Devils

Obviously an excellent and intimidating nickname, albeit one that doesn’t really fit the current incarnation of this team with all those pleasant young lads. Red Devils suffers on this list because of the title’s more famous affiliation with Manchester United, however let it be known that Man Utd started calling themselves Red Devils in the early 1960s, borrowing if from Salford Rugby League Club, whereas Belgium have been The Red Devils since 1906 (on account of the red jerseys).

16) Saudi Arabia - Green Falcons

A combination of Al-Suqour (The Falcons) and Al-Akhdhar (The Green), the latter being the colour of their jerseys. It’s the standard formula… but Green Falcons sorta makes them sound like they’ve got motion sickness or something. Solid effort, though.

15) Uruguay - Los Charrúas

The Charrúa are an indigenous people who have lived in what’s now known as Uruguay for an estimated 4000 years. Nice to see a positive reflection of an indigenous society and this nickname gets even better when they call them La Garra Charrúa… aka THE CHARRÚA CLAW!

14) Costa Rica - Los Ticos

Los Ticos is a familiar way of describing the people of Costa Rica, so it’s effectively the same as calling our rugby league team: The Kiwis. Which is a very good nickname and even better for Costa Rica where football is far and away the dominant sport. Nice and definitive.

13) Mexico - El Tri

A classic of the genre. Mexico wear three main colours (green, white and red) and so their team became known as El Tricolor. El Tri for short. One of those ones which a few other teams have tried to borrow but it’s too synonymous with Mexico.

12) Iceland - Strákarnir Okkar

It means Our Boys. Isn’t that a lovely and supportive way to describe your national football team? Especially from the smallest country to ever qualify for the World Cup. Iceland are all about relying on their own teamwork to beat the superior individuals of other teams. It’s almost too perfect.

11). Brazil - Seleção

Similar to the Mexico one, this is hardly a specific nickname but it’s so completely entwined with Brazilian football that it’s become iconic in its own right. All it means is The Selection. Typical Brazil, making the basic appear sublime.

10) Croatia - Vatreni

It literally means The Fiery Ones and that’s an image that, when combined with those famous red and white checks, is an outstanding summation of what Croatia has to offer at the World Cup. Plenty of passion and excitement, maybe a little aggression… love it. Great nickname and it sounds even cooler in its natural tongue.

9) Spain - La Furia Roja

THE RED FURY! The only way this could be any better is if they called themselves THE SPANISH INQUISITION… but then nobody would have expected that. Probably drops a few spots because Fury is not really a word you’d necessarily associate with the death-by-1000-passes style of the modern Spain although Diego Costa might beg to differ.

8) Colombia - Los Cafeteros

Sounds cool – Los Cafeteros! – … but what does it mean? It means The Coffee-Growers. You know, because of how Colombia is world famous for their production of that popular and addictive substance called… coffee. It’s a curiously quirky choice of a handle but if you’re going to go weird then might as well go as weird as possible. Did you know Colombian coffee was this good? You do now. The Colombian team nickname is so good it doubles as a tourism promotion.

7) Panama - La Manea Roja

The Red Tide, flooding past you like the blood from the elevators in The Shining. Terrifying and yet strangely awe-inspiring at the same time. Here’s a name that combines a shirt colour with an elemental force. Think of all the things that ‘tide’ could represent, from unstoppable persistence to swelling support. Plus it’s red.

6) South Korea - Taeguk Warriors

The Warriors bit is self-explanatory, just another example of how international sport is seen to be comparative to warfare (ideally in a way that subsumes the need for actual warfare, you know?). The Taeguk bit is the important bit. It’s the symbol that you see in the middle of their flag, the interlocking red and blue circle-swirls, and the word itself is the Korean version of the Chinese term Taiji, which means ‘supreme ultimate’. Yes, please. It’s the word in which Tai-Chi and Taekwondo find their origins and combined with the rest of the flag it represents harmony and interconnectedness. So the Korean team are warriors, sure. But they’re warriors of cosmic alignment. Which is trippy enough for sixth place.

5) Senegal - Lions of Teranga

Or, in French: Les Lions de la Téranga. Lions are ideal symbols for a national team. They’re fierce, proud, powerful and dignified, all qualities that would be high on the list if you surveyed fans as to what they want to see represented by the national team that represents them. It’s all silly patriotism but people want to see their national teams reflect the best parts of their identity. That’s enough to put The Lions of Teranga into the top ten already but that’s before considering the other half of this name. Teranga is a Senegalese concept which forms one of the bedrocks of that culture. It’s all about hospitality and generosity, a value system which prioritises kindness and honesty towards strangers. Senegal’s national footy team don’t only have a superb visual image to their nickname but also a moral imperative too!

4) England - Three Lions

Typical joke here about how this is the closest the English team are going to get to winning anything at the World Cup. Okay, that’s done. Now, you can say what you will about the last fifty years of English on-field torment… but you can’t criticise the nickname. Three Lions is brilliant. Not only are they lions… but there’s three of them! Three’s a lucky number. Lions are badass animals. Of course, it all goes back to the Royal Arms of England as defined by King Richard the Lionheart in the 12th century, as you well know. Only thing holding them out of the top three is that there haven’t been any actual wild lions in England for 14,000 years so they’ve kinda just stolen them as an icon.

3) Nigeria - Super Eagles

Not just eagles but Super Eagles. Back in the day they were another one of those Red Devils but then Nigeria won national independence and they became the Green Eagles. But in the 80s they changed it again because who’s ever heard of a green eagle? (Shade on Saudi Arabia, yikes). Thus they became the Super Eagles. No need for any deeper meaning when you’ve got a name that good. Between that and their internet-shattering new jerseys this team is way up near the top of the branding standings.

2) Tunisia - Eagles of Carthage

They have an eagle on their federation badge so that’s why they chose that one, yet lots of teams have eagles. Nigeria even have Super Eagles… but only Tunisia has the Eagles of Carthage. If you paid attention in history class (or rate yourself some Dan Carlin) then you already know that the nation of Tunisia exists upon the area where the ancient Carthaginians once dwelled. The Roman Empire sacked and rebuilt it during the Punic Wars but it remained one of the most influential cities in the world, an economic capital, a cultural and agricultural hub and a military stronghold. And that’s the legacy that the Tunisian team draws upon every time they take the field.

1) Morocco - Lions of the Atlas

Also, more simply, the Atlas Lions, depending on how you wanna read it... but Lions of the Atlas sounds a bit fancier. There are a couple meanings here. Lions are choice and that’s already been established by a few other countries. The Atlas Mountains are a two and a half thousand metre range that crosses southern Morocco, a major natural landmark in the country. And then there are the lions that live in those mountains, the original Atlas Lions, which are the same species of lion that were used in gladiatorial combat way back when. They’re regionally extinct now but the spirit lives on thanks to a genuinely outstanding team name. Seriously, what a name.

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