DO NAMES HAVE ANY EFFECT ON PERFORMANCE? ASK THESE 32 WORLD CUP TEAMS.

The World Cup has brought with it so many surprises. The various teams have given us their possible best, and we have been entertained. These teams have different names that identify them.

I sat in church on Sunday as the priest delivered the sermon on the way we humans approach the issue of respect and honour. He then related it to the World Cup, specifically the names of the worst performing teams. He tried to create a link between team performance and the name of the team, emphasizing the fact that a mojority of the teams with the most aggressive name are the worst performing. I sought to clarify that, and that's why I decided to write this article.

Let's take a look at the names of the various teams.

Brazil
'Seleçao' meaning 'the selection' or 'Verde-Amarela' meaning 'green and yellow' representing the colours of their previous jersey.
Reached semi-finals 



Croatia

Croatia - 'Vatreni' translated as 'The Blazers'. Probably because the croatians had been hard to beat for years.
Eliminated at Group Stage
PICTURE COURTESY OF sdgpr.com





Cameroon

 'The Indomitable Lions'. Probably a reflection of the teams succeses in the 70's and 80's.
Eliminated at Group Stage (No match won)
PICTURE COURTESY OF NILE SPORTS
     



Mexico

  'El Tri'. This represents the three traditional colours (white, green and red)
Reached Roung of 16
PICTURE COURTESY OF BET THE WORLD CUP








Holland

'Oranje' meaning 'Orange', which is the colour of the dutch national team attire.
Reached Semi-Finals.
PICTURE COURTESY OF WORLDCUPZONES.COM







Spain

'LA Fluria Roja' which means 'Red Fury', and probably represents the colour of their outfit.
Eliminated at Group Stage
PICTURE COURTESY OF THE BLEACHER REPORT






Chile

'La Roja' which translates as 'The Reds' and is also reflected in their national ootfit and flag.
Reached Round of 16
PICTURE COURTESY OF CYPRUS-MAIL.COM






Australia

'Socceroos' which is in homage to the 'kangaroo' which is an animal almost unique to Australia
Elimited at Group Stage
PICTURE COURTESY OF bestino.streetwise.co




Japan

'Blue Samurai' in respect of ancient japanese legend and the colour of their outfit too is blue.
Eliminated at Group Stage         
PICTURE OF worldinfo4u.com







Greece

'The Pilattes Ship'. They got this name from their 2004 European Championship win.
Reached Round of 16
PICTURE COURTESY OF www.tovima.gr






Ivory Coast

'Les Eléphants' meaning 'The Elephants'. The elephant is one of the strongest animals in the wild.
Reached Round of 16
PICTURE COURTESY OF www.bgr.com






Colombia

'Los Cafeteros' which loosely translates into 'coffee maker' or 'someone who makes coffee'.
Reached Quarter Finals
PICTURE COURTESY OF conmebol.com     





Italy

'Azzurri' meaning 'The Blues', and also the colour of their jersey.
Reached Round of 16
PICTURE COURTESY OF CITY PEOPLE NEWS






England

'The Three Lions' which makes allusion to the three lions on the logo of the English FA logo.
Eliminated at Group Stage
 PICTURE COURTESY OF www.ronaldo7.net





Costa Rica

'Los Ticos' which is a more shortened term for 'Costarincencces' or 'Native Costa Rican people'
Reached Quarter Finals
PICTURE COURTESY OF COSTA RICAN TIMES





Uruguay

'La Celeste' which translates 'The Sky Blues', referring to the team's sky blue uniform   
Reached Round of 16          PICTURE COURTESY OF www.ronaldo7.net







France

'Les Bleus' which translates into 'The Blues' and olso the colour of the national team outfit.
Reached Quarter Finals
PICTURE COURTESY OF www.mlsoccer.net




 

Switzerland

'La Nati' meaning 'The National Team'. Very short and straight to the point.*
Reached the Group Stage
PICTURE COURTESY OF ABC.NET.AU





 

Honduras

'Los Catrachos' which is a name used to refer to native hondurans.
Eliminated at Group Stage
PICTURE COURTESY OF CONCACAF.COM





Ecuador

'La Tricolor' which refers to the ecuadorian flag: yellow, blue and red
Eliminated at Group Stage
PICTURE COURTESY OF worldcupbrazil.net







Argentina

'La Albiceleste' which translates 'The White and Sky Blue', referring to their national team outfit.
Reached Finals







Iran

'Team Melli' which simply translates 'Nationa Team'.
Eliminated at Group Stage
PICTURE COURTESY OF theiranproject.com







 

Bosnia and Herzegovina

'Zmajevi' which translates into 'Warrior'. The name was given by a commentator in 2004.
Eliminated at Group Stage

PICYURE COURTESY OF tipsontits.co.uk



Nigeria

 'Super Eagles' which they adopted after loosing to 'The Indomitable Lions' in the 1988 ACN finals.
Reached Round of 16
PICTURE COURTESY OF cheeronnigeria.blogspot.com






United States of America

 'The Yanks' which as of now is still just an unofficial name
Reached Round of 16 

 PICTURE COURTESY OF heavy.com







 
  

Germany 

'Die Mannschaft' which translates as 'The Team'.
Reached finals and is favourite to win.
PICTURE COURTESY OF tsmplug.com






Portugal

 'Seleçao das Quinas' meaning 'The Selection of The Shields' refers to the five shields and five dots within each shield on the country's flag.
Eliminated at Group Stage
PICTURE COURTESY OF www.footballgate.com





Ghana

'The Black Stars' which is in reference to the sole black star on Ghana's flag.
Reached Round of 16
PICTURE COURTESY OF THE GUARDIAN






Russia

'Sbornaya' a powerful word which simply means 'National Team'.
Eliminated at Group Stage
PICYURE COURTESY OF THE MOSCOW TIMES







Belgium

'The Red Devils' with respect to the colour of their jersey.
Reached the Quarter Finals
 PICTURE COURTESY OF sol.pt







South Korea

'Taegeuk Warriors'. The South Korean fans also refer to themselves as 'Red Devils'
Eliminated at Group Stage
PICTURE COURTESY www.abc.net.au







Algeria

 'Les Fennecs' in honour of the national animal of Algeria (small nocturnal foxes native in North Africa.)
Reached Round of 16
PICTURE COURTESY OF en.qantara.de





 This priests thesis was that the teams with the most 'powerful names' didn't go far while those with those with soft names did go far in the tournament.

When all is considered, there are a number of areas where the priest was right: For example, the African teams had some of the most 'powerful names', particularly Cameroon, but failed to go far. The same could be said of Asian teams like Japan and South Korea. All three of these teams were eliminated in the Group Stage. Secondly, as seen above, the teams that reached the semi finals have the 'softest names'.

But the thing is that he considers there to be a correlation between team name and team performance which is totally false. First of all, consider the fact that some of these 'powerful-name-poor-performance' teams were once football greats, like Cameroon (check Cameroon's past records).

Secondly, some of the soft name teams still did not go anywhere, like Australia.

So my verdict is that there's no correlation between a team's name and it's performance, Russia, Australia and Iran would have reached the semi-finals, and the Ivory Coast and Ghana would not have done as good as they did.