Good old times, collecting stickers for our football albums.
Now is time to see mascots for FIFA World Cup.

Ciao

Let’s start:

England, 1966 – World Cup Willie
World Cup Willie

A lion, symbol of the United Kingdom, wearing a Union Flag jersey with the words “WORLD CUP”.

Mexico, 1970 – Juanito
Juanito

A boy wearing Mexico’s kit and a sombrero (with the words “MEXICO 70”).

West Germany, 1974 – Tip and Tap
Tip and Tap

Two boys wearing Germany kits, with the letters WM (Weltmeisterschaft, World Cup) and number 74.

Argentina, 1978 – Gauchito
Gauchito

A boy wearing Argentina’s kit. His hat (with the words ARGENTINA ’78), neckerchief and whip are typical of gauchos.

Spain, 1982 – Naranjito
Naranjito

An orange, a typical fruit in Spain, wearing the kit of the host’s national team. Its name comes from naranja, Spanish for orange.


Mexico, 1986 – Pique
Pique

A jalapeño pepper, characteristic of Mexican cuisine, with a moustache and wearing a sombrero. Its name comes from picante, Spanish for spicy peppers and sauces.

Italy, 1990 – Ciao
Ciao

A stick figure player with a football head and an Italian tricolore body. Its name is an Italian greeting.

USA, 1994 – Striker, the World Cup Pup
Striker

A dog, a common US pet animal, wearing a red, white and blue football uniform with the words “USA 94”.

France, 1998 – Footix
Footix

A rooster, one of the national symbols of France, with the words “FRANCE 98” on the chest. Its body is mostly blue, like the host’s national team shirt and its name is a portmanteau of “football” and the ending “-ix” from the popular Astérix comic strip.Other proposed names were “Raffy”, “Houpi” and “Gallik”.

South Korea / Japan, 2002 – Ato, Kaz and Nik
Ato, Kaz, Nik

Orange, purple and blue (respectively) futuristic, computer-generated creatures. Collectively members of a team of “Atmoball” (a fictional football-like sport), Ato is the coach while Kaz and Nik are players. The three individual names were selected from shortlists by users on the Internet and at McDonald’s outlets in the host countries.

Germany, 2006 – Goleo VI (Goleo and Pille)
Goleo and Pille

A lion wearing a Germany shirt with the number 06 and a talking football named Pille. Goleo is a portmanteau of the words “goal” and “leo”, the Latin word for lion. In Germany, “Pille” is a colloquial term for a football.

South Africa, 2010 – Zakumi
Zakumi

Zakumi is a leopard, a common animal found in South Africa, with green hair wearing a shirt saying South Africa 2010. Zakumi’s green and gold colors represents South African national sports’ teams colors. His name comes from “ZA”, the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code for South Africa, and “kumi”, a word that means “ten” in various African languages.