You’re Saying it Wrong! Sporting Lisbon, Inter Milan, and Other Incorrect Names That Drive Football Fans Crazy
By: Daryl | August 25th, 2009
Football is a global sport. Which is one of the reasons we love it so much. Unfortunately that international appeal is also the root of many many misunderstandings, leading to football teams being incorrectly labeled outside their native land. Which can drive fans of those teams crazy.
I’ve been on both ends of this. I’ve been the fool that irritated both sides of a city by saying “Inter Milan” and “AC Milan”, and I’ve been the angry man looking for something to punch when an ESPN commentator referred to my team as “the Wolverhampton Wolves”.
So this post listing the most common mistakes isn’t intended to suggest that I know any better, or that any one person or nationality is any more or less guilty than any other. Think of it instead as a resource, designed to help football fans of the world communicate a little easier. Of course we welcome your additions and/or corrections to the list in the comments…
Mistakes are in bold, explanations and correct names underneath.
“Sporting Lisbon”
Apparently this drives people in Portugal insane. The team is indeed based in Lisbon, but the actual name is Sporting Clube de Portugal. Either Sporting or Sporting CP works for short.
“Chelsea London”
This seems to be mostly a German mistake, appending the team name with the city of London. Great example here, where they do it to Arsenal too. It’s harmless of course, but it looks and sounds weird to unaccustomed eyes and ears. It also feels like a little too much information. If you’re going to say Chelsea London, why not go all the way and call them “Chelsea London England Europe Earth”?
“SS Lazio Roma”
The team is from the city of Roma, but the team name is SS Lazio. So another one based on adding the team’s location, only this one isn’t so harmless. Lazio and Roma are deadly enemies, so conflating both team names into one is every Lazio and Roma fans worst team-merger nightmare come true.
“Inter Milan”
The full name is Football Club Internazionale Milano. But the common name is Internazionale, or Inter for short. If you want an Inter fan to think you’re a moron, go ahead and call the team “Inter Milan”. It’s a little more accurate than the Sporting Lisbon mistake (because at least “Milano” is in the full team name) but they’ll still look at you with pity. Save yourself two syllables and stick with just “Inter”.
“AC Milan”
This is a little more borderline. It’s technically correct, as the full team name is Associazione Calcio Milan, or A.C. Milan for short. But think of it this way… do you always say the full Manchester United F.C.? Do you call Alex Ferguson’s team “FC” for short. Of course you don’t. So better to call this team Milan.
“The MLS”
We’ve all done this one. Or if not then we’ve co-hosted a radio show with someone who does. Ahem. MLS stands for Major League Soccer. So if you use the definitive article in front of it, then you’re saying “the Major League Soccer”. So stick with simply saying “MLS”. But even if you say “the MLS” then at least you can feel superior to the fools who say “MSL”.
“Bayern Leverkusen”
It’s not. It’s actually Bayer 04 Leverkusen, the Bayer being the famous aspirin selling pharmaceutical manufacturer which founded the club in 1904. Obviously the Bayer-Bayern mistake arises from confusion with Bayern Munich. Which is a whole other issue…
Questionable? Bayern Munich
This seems wrong to me. The actual team name, in German, is FC Bayern München. But if we’re going to translate the München part into English as “Munich”, then shouldn’t we also translate Bayern into English as “Bavaria”, giving us “Bavaria Munich”?
The name we now use in English is half German (Bayern) and half English (Munich) and yet everyone seems to accept it as OK. Can any German football fans out there solve this question?
“Real Madrid”
Everyone spells it correctly as “Real Madrid”. But not everyone says it correctly. In fact, far too many people (myself included) often forget that “Real” is Spanish for “royal” and so should be pronounced “Ray-al” “Reh-al” (thanks Malin!)
“Barca”
Another one I’m guilty of. Obviously the full team name is Fútbol Club Barcelona. And the familiar abbreviation is Barça, with that nice accent thingy on the fourth letter there. But that often gets lazily typed out as “Barca”. Which apparently means “boat” in Catalan.
Wondering why “EPL” isn’t on this list? Read this post for an explanation: Why It’s OK to Say EPL
Know of any more? Or have corrections/clarifications for anything above? Let us know in the comments…
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Saint Louis Athletica makes me wince somewhat, though nowhere near as much as Real Salt Lake.
In a similar vein, and related to the issue of tagging the city name behind the club… Athletic Bilbao, although that isn’t really a big deal, just that most people don’t know that “Athletic Club de Bilbao” is the complete name, and I usually see it as “Athletic”, “Athletic Club” or “Athletic de Bilbao” in Spanish news.
I might be completely wrong on this one, but I only recall ever seeing “Racing Santander”, “Sporting Gijón” and “Deportivo La Coruña” in the English-language press. As far as I can remember, in the Spanish press they’re simply “Racing”, “Sporting” and “Deportivo”, otherwise they’re given as “Racing de Santander”, etc.
Posted from
Singapore
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Not that it really bothers me, but Juventus is not pronounced Jew-ven-tuss nor who-ven-tus. It’s yoo-ven-toos.
Posted from
United States -
Referring to Tottenham Hotspur as ‘the Spurs’. Hate it. Just Spurs, thanks.
Posted from
United States -
sscouser: its pronounced e-raak. So many Americans say i-rack.
Posted from
United States -
Hamburger for Hamburger SV
Or Sv Hamburg
Hamburg is ok, Hamburg SV is ok
HSV is even shorter than them all, but hamburger is as confusing and wrong as it looks.Posted from
Iceland -
Oh and also, is “Olympique Lyon” considered to be correct?
Posted from
United States -
g-We can fix that… just call then HShitV…. FORZA St. Pauli!
Posted from
United States -
It bugs the crap out of me when legit news sources spell Marseille (as in l’OM) as “Marseilles.”
Posted from
United States -
@Al: No, it’s not. You can say Lyon, Olympique Lyonnais or simply OL.
Anyway, The French always use the name of the city the club is in, even if sometimes the name of the city isn’t part of the name at all (like Chelsea, Arsenal or Tottenham). So, every French team has a full version of it’s name (Olympique Lyonnais, Olympique de Marseille, Girondins de Bordeaux, OGC Nice, Paris Saint-Germain) and the shorter version of the name, refering to the city the club comes from (Lyon, Marseille, Bordeaux, Nice, Paris). It’s definitely a part of a tradition that a football club represents the city itself. In France, there isn’t a single city with two teams in the first two tiers of the league, so it all makes sense.
Posted from
United States -
“The team’s name was chosen as a reflection of European team names such as Manchester United or Newcastle United. D.C. United however departs from the common British practice in which “United” typically refers refer to a club formed by the union of two existing constituent clubs”
This amuses me. A million bucks to the first person who can name the two clubs that merged to form Manchester United.
Posted from
United States -
How about national teams?? The Netherlands constantly being called Holland??
Posted from
United Kingdom -
to me, the most annoying thing related to Brazilian football is calling Ronaldinho “Dinho”. In Brazil, nobody does that. In fact, Dinho was a violent defensive midfielder who played for Sao Paulo and Gremio.
Posted from
United States -
“The Netherlands constantly being called Holland??”
Although technically incorrect, “Holland” has pretty much been accepted as an alias for Netherlands. You don’t have enough fingers on your hands to plug the holes in this dyke. I mean, are you going to get all up in arms because only citizens of the 50 United States are called “Americans” and the Northern Irish are often included as “British”?
A more worthy (though still pointless) fight is when even members of the media can’t get Korean names right. If a guy’s name is Lee XXX-YYY, “Lee” is the family name. Though to be fair, Koreans confuse matters by using “Park Ji-Sung” and “Ji-Sung Park” interchangeably.
Posted from
United States -
Daryl, your a Wolves fan! I was cheering for you against Manchester City this weekend and enjoyed it thoroughly (hard loss, but I still liked your boys).
The problem with most teams in the UK is that they can correctly be called: by their full name; their shortened name; the city/town they’re located in if they’re the only ones there; the name of the grounds; the name of the street abutting the grounds; the name of something manufactured in their town (or the teams’ side of town); the color of their uniforms (nothing clever there); an animal vegetable or mineral related to the color of the uniform or the name of the team/town; a nickname related to a word (or inferred context) in the team/town name; a nickname for the fans themselves (or the section they sit in; or as [insert manager's name]’s men.
It keeps the commentary lively but can certainly be confusing to those that didn’t grow up with the references. There are invariably 3 things we have to explain to guests who don’t follow football, apart from why its on all weekend during the season. First, the offside rule/trap, then the whole substitutions business, and finally who the hell they’re talking about — if the guest has not fallen asleep by this time.
Posted from
United States -
Holycalamity, a valid point there… United started off as Newton Heath Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway, and then later became Newton Heath.
Essentially, they were saved from bankruptcy, and the new owners decided that a new name was necessary and chose “Manchester United” from a list that also included “Manchester Central” and “Manchester Celtic.” And that’s paraphrased from their official history…
Posted from
United States -
I have no idea if Daryl is still paying attention to this thread but I just wanted to say thanks for changing the banner on the Inter page to reflect the actual name of the team.
Posted from
United States -
Taylor, I love all that stuff. When I was a kid, from a LFC family, I thought that Anfield rather than Old Trafford deserved to be the Theatre of Dreams! But then no one else has The Kop so we make do
.I thought The Trotters for Bolton was very funny until I made the wanderers connection. And for the longest time I imagined that the Tyne-Wear Derby had something to do with table settings rather than rivers (???).
Posted from
United States -
I’m surprised the Old Firm clubs weren’t included on the list. It’s fairly common to see “Glasgow Rangers” or “Glasgow Celtic”, although they’re just Rangers F.C. and Celtic F.C.
Posted from
United States -
@Chris
“Funny, I wasn’t aware there were multiple other Serie A’s or La Liga’s.”
isnt the official term for the brazilian league serie a, or is that the wrong one?Posted from
United States -
HAMBURG IST SCHWARZ-WEIß-BLAU
SCHEIß SANKT PAULI
Nie wieder erstklassig!Posted from
Iceland -
DC United also follows the Washington habit of having team names relating to the fact it’s the Capitol of the US – like the Washington Freedom (women’s soccer), Nationals (baseball), Senators (former baseball), and Capitols (ice hockey).
Posted from
United Kingdom -
Oh man how I hate when people ask me what club I support and I say “Milan” and they say “Inter or AC?”.
Posted from
United States -
Another one that gets messed up a lot is Athletic Club Bilbao. I have seen them called “Athletic de Bilbao”, “Athletic Club de Bilbao”, or “Bilbao”. They are only to be called Athletic Club Bilbao, Athletic Club, or Athletic!!!!!
Posted from
United States -
@ Paul: Here, here! That’s my main pet peeve too. Refusing to call our team Athletic (or Athletic Bilbao, Athletic Club etc) is reminiscent of the Franco era when we were forced to change it into Atlético de Bilbao. :/
Athletic Club de Bilbao or even Athletic de Bilbao is just fine as that’s what it is in Spanish. But it’s the simply Bilbao that annoys me so much.
Posted from
United States -
on the AC Milan issue (and the ManU FC example):
When you’re referring to “the FC” in Germany, everyone knows you’re talking about Cologne, just as “the Club” is a synonym for Nuremberg.
Doesn’t mean that it’s ok for Milan, though.Posted from
United States
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