Apodos (SPA-ENG)

Nicknames

In my post yesterday, I wrote about an Argentine women's beach handball team that, beyond its spectacular international triumph, was somewhat surprised and unsettled by the nickname it chose as its identification. In that post, I mentioned the trend of giving national teams in different sports a specific name or nickname, and it occurred to me to write about the origins of some of them. Of course, I also had to do a fair amount of research because, in some cases, the stories don't match up and can even be vague and contradictory.

The first thing that came to mind was trying to interpret the origin of this almost always endearing trend of national teams with nicknames. Although I'm not entirely certain, I firmly believe it all started with the All Blacks, the legendary and multi-champion rugby team representing New Zealand.

The origin of this team's nickname is easy to guess: their all-black uniform, with a small silvery-white fern branch as its only contrast, is what distinguishes them on any playing field around the world—that and the haka, the island's signature Maori dance. However, it seems that their attire wasn't the origin of the idea to popularize them as the "All Blacks," but rather a typographical error in a British newspaper at the beginning of the 20th century when New Zealand rugby toured the British Empire. According to a popular story that cannot be confirmed or dismissed, a newspaper article emphasized that they were all backs, meaning that their style of play was that of those players who belonged to the "three-quarters" due to their position and function on the field. The error in transcribing the article for the newspaper resulted in the replacement of "all backs" with "all blacks," and from there, the official nickname was born, which continues to this day.

From then on, several other major rugby teams around the world copied the idea and began using identifying nicknames: Wallabies, Springboks, Red Roses, Red Dragons, and others.

Our national rugby team is known worldwide as "Los Pumas." They only began using the nickname in the mid-20th century, and in that case, too, it was the result of confusion. On a tour of South Africa, officials and journalists from that country saw that the crest printed on the top left corner of the Argentine national team jersey had a feline drawn on it. It was a jaguar, the largest feline in the Americas and widely distributed in our country, although it is currently in danger of extinction. They didn't know the name and mistook it for a puma. That's what the South African press called them, and our boys' nickname has remained forever.

Other national teams from other sports likely copied the idea from rugby, and "Las Leonas" (The Lionesses) began using their nickname during the 2000 Sydney Olympics when one of their legendary players, Inés Arrondo, drew a lioness ready to attack on the locker room board, seeking to encourage the team in the face of the enormous challenge of reaching the podium for the first time. The motivation worked, the nickname stuck, and Las Leonas took the silver medal, losing only the last match against Australia.

From then on, the men's field hockey team began using the nickname "Los Leones" (The Lionesses) was only a short step, and although the team considered other distinctive names, they stuck with this one.

Other national teams in different disciplines have also acquired different nicknames in recent times. Thus, we have "the gladiators" in men's handball and "the claw" in women's, "the panthers" is the nickname of the women's basketball team, and "the soul" represents the national basketball team. A nickname that originated with that team, which was also called "the golden generation" when they won the gold medal in Athens 2004. Of course, it was a generation difficult to replicate, led by Emanuel Ginobili, but also by several other historic names such as Scola, Oberto, Nocioni, Hermann, Delfino, and Sanchez, all of whom played in the NBA at the time.

Of all these nicknames, the most sympathetic to me is "the bats," the national adapted soccer team for the blind. Since its creation, it has accumulated three world titles and two runner-up finishes, in addition to several medals in Paralympic Games and other international titles.

Curiously, the Argentine national soccer team, the current world champion, doesn't have an official nickname, although it does have several informal ones. In the most popular sport on the planet, few teams have a distinctive official nickname—strange, but true. Perhaps because they're so recognized worldwide, national soccer teams don't need any extraordinary embellishments.

In any case, nicknames are a way of distinguishing a team locally, and in many cases internationally, for the promotion of the sport and its unequivocal recognition; besides, a little promotion never hurts anyone.

And speaking of promotion, this coming Saturday, August 16, Los Pumas will play the first of two test matches against the All Blacks at the Mario Alberto Kempes Stadium in the city of Córdoba. Don't miss it.