In English football, we don’t really do nicknames. We’re deprived of the bizarre and the silly nicknames, the fascinating and the ones that simply don’t make much sense. Instead we have shortened names, Stevie G, Lamps, Becks just to name a few. It’s now even cool to call Gary Neville “G-Nev”.
Thankfully football on the continent and beyond is less stringent with its nicknames. They play on how a player works, how he plays in relation to a dangerous animal or perhaps where he came from – his background in life, his home place.
Henry at Look At What It Means to him, and we highly recommend you visit his site for something a little different in terms of football content, scoured the world for real nicknames and made this neat little map. It’s a little small to fit on here, so click here or on the image for a larger version.
Who knew that Henri Camara, once of Wigan, is known as “Smiling Rabbit with a Rifle”. Crystal Palace’s Lee Chung Yong is the “Blue Dragon”. Best of all, USA midfielder DaMarcus Beasley is “Run DBM”. Fantastic.
