Speaker: Mark Worden (Standard British accent):

I stopped in at Pedro’s laundrette on Albert Road this morning. For once, he wasn’t busy helping customers. He was studying the World Cup teams.
“Good morning, Mr. Sutton. Which team do you prefer?” Pedro is Brazilian. He gets excited about the World Cup.
I looked at him: “You mean, which team is going to win?”
He made a typical Brazilian face. “We know who’s going to win! I’m holding a competition to choose the best nickname.” He pointed at his wall chart. Beside the team shirts were their nicknames.
“I had no idea the names were so important!”
“Important?” said Pedro. “They’re crucial!” So we began studying.

TRUE COLOURS

“I don’t think much of colour nicknames.” I pointed at the Blues (France), the Reds (Chile), the Orange (Holland) and the White-Red (Paraguay).
Pedro wiped his nose. “Even worse is the Albicelestes!” Brazilians and Argentinians are not the best of friends.
“It doesn’t sound good in English either,” I agreed. “The Blue-Whites? We don’t have a word for sky-blue. But the Azzurri has a nice ring to it.”
We decided that colours were improved by adding another word. I pointed to New Zealand’s All Whites. “Like their rugby team, the All Blacks.”
“I like Serbia’s White Eagles,” said Pedro. “The Red Fury is a good description for Spain. And Ghana have the Black Stars.”
“The African teams have good names. Nigeria, the Super Eagles. Algeria, the Desert Foxes.”
Pedro agreed: “Don’t forget the home team. Bafana Bafana, which means The Boys, The Boys.”
“I like animal names. Ivory Coast, Elephants. And Slovenia, the Dragons, from the shield of their capital city, Ljubjana. Like the Three Lions on England’s shirts. You know England is the only team whose players all play in their domestic league?”
Pedro shook his head: “I prefer tough names. Cameroon, the Indomitable Lions. They sound hard to beat.”

ALFIE...

My friend Alfie came in to wash some clothes. “You think that’s tough? What about Japan? The Blue Samurai. Brilliant! And they’re not the only fighters. South Korea are the Taegeuk Warriors – something to do with the martial art Taekwondo.”
“I wish Trinidad and Tobago had qualified,” I said. “The Soca Warriors. Sounds like soccer, but actually it’s a type of music.”
“Forget those losers!” said Alfie. “What about Olsen’s Eleven? Morten Olsen has been coaching Denmark for years. If they’re as cool as the Hollywood film Ocean’s Eleven, they’ll steal the Cup.”
“But remember the Greeks,” said Pedro, “stealing Euro 2004? That’s why they’re called the Pirate Ship.”

THE SOCCEROOS

Pedro’s wife will be supporting the Socceroos. She’s from Australia, where football is called soccer to distinguish it from Australian Rules Football. The word soccer comes from the “soc” in the Football Assocation. A journalist put soccer together with kangaroo, to invent the word “Socceroos.”
Of course, Pedro prefers the team with most World Cup wins – and the most nicknames: Little Canaries, Green-Yellow, Samba Kings. You guessed: Brazil!