Welcome to the Colombian Blog

Well, perhaps you are reading this under the old Junior template but i’ve been informed by Daryl that the colombian blog will be added anytime soon as I requested. But until then, I’ll proceed to operate “as if…”. As I said before, the first post of this blog is an introduction to the nicknames of Colombian teams and an attempt to translate them to English as accurately as possible. You already know that Junior is los tiburones which translates the sharks, and in the following table I have the nicknames of the 18 teams of the FPC (Fútbol Profesional Colombiano / Colombian Professional Football)

As you can see, some of the literal translations seem dull, boring or even dumb. So I wanted to make some cooler ‘Adaptations’ of the english version of the teams nicknames. Let’s look at this on a case-by-case basis:

America:

Another Red Devils. I know. The nickname that is a sort of international trade mark because the Devils from Cali share it with Manchester United, Independiente from Argentina and Toluca from Mexico. (Those are the ones I know of). But America has a bit of a more “legit” claim to the nickname as the team actually has a devil in its symbol, as you can see:
America got the nickname when one of the pioneer supporters of the club said: “es que juegan como diablos” (”the play like they’re devils”) and it stands up to this date. Other nicknames are “La Mechita” (The wick) and “Los Escarlatas” (The scarlets). Given the global appeal, i’ll stick with the Red Devils with All Reds (because of the uniform) as an alternative choice.

Atlético Huila

Altough the team is from a Rice production region, the nickname The Ricers, (or the Rice growers or farmers or whatever you want) is being given more for commercial reasons as the team is sponsored by Arroz Roa, a Rice company and even tough they play with yellow shirts, they have to wear them with a big red logo on the chest as you see from this FIFA 08 kit template. The teams other nicknames are Los Opitas, which is related to their region and therefore impossible to translate and Los bambuqueros, which is related to a type of folk music (What, The bambuco dancers?, ‘The dancers’ only?) so The Ricers is what makes more sense.

Atlético Junior:

The Sharks is a mascot-related nickname as there is always a man with a plastic shark on his head always at the team’s home games.

Atlético Nacional:

What’s more dull than color-related nicknames? But for Los Verdolagas there doesn’t seem to be any other choice. Or at least not for me, as I find it ludicrous to call this team “El Rey de Copas” (The King of Cups) as its supporters call it because no Colombian team has had such great impact on the international scene to claim such title. Nacional has won one Libertadores Cup just like Once Caldas has done and the team with more domestic cups to this date is Millonarios. The rest of the “cups” that this so-called King has are two off the no longer existant Merconorte cups that America and Millonarios won as well. That being said, we only have options such as The Greens, The Greeners, The Green and Whites or the Men in Green. Care to suggest?

Boyacá Chicó.

This team wears a checkered jersey inspired in the Croatia NT (I guess) but with the traditional chess (or racing flag) pattern: black and white. So in spanish the nickname is Los Ajedrezados. In English, it would be The Chessmen. But is sounds a little boring to me so maybe The Checkereds, The Checkered ones or even The ChessMasters could be better options. What do you think? On the meantime, look at their jerseys:

Atletico Bucaramanga:

Their nickname is The Leopards as itcan be seen on their symbol. Now, would it be too bad if I changed the feline and nickname them The Cheetahs? Both felines are so close anyway. Other nicknames of this team are The Canaries (because of the color) and Los Bucaros (region-related). Cheetahs would be te coolest for me (altough it can be ridiculed as Cheetos) . Would you like Leopards better?.

To be continued…

Category: Fútbol Profesional Colombiano News