National football teams in Africa have a predilection for animals as nicknames. In Europe, they opt more for colours such as La Roja, les Bleus or gli Azzurri, for example. On the African continent, however, they are more inclined to equate themselves with a specimen of the animal kingdom. Thirty-five of their 54 national teams (36, if we take into account the Western Saharan team, Les Camels, which is not recognised by FIFA) identify with one of them.
It can be a powerful feline, such as a lion, leopard or cheetah. Something as feared as a crocodile, a mamba, one of the most venomous snakes, a scorpion or a shark. Some have chosen an insect as annoying as wasps. Others have opted for something sweeter, such as swallows or the dodo, that most endearing of birds. Various antelopes, camels and different birds such as eagles, cranes or sparrow hawks, and fish. There are also elephants, zebras and zebus.
The remaining 19 have a variety of names, including several warriors, a few stars, a shield, a thunderclap or allusions to characteristics of the country.
The animal chosen can be important in instilling confidence in the players. That seems to be what the change of name of Benin's national team is all about. Formerly known as the Squirrels, for the past few years they have been called the Cheetahs. But dropping the rodent doesn't seem to have brought them much luck. They are still without silverware. The most they have achieved in their history is reaching the quarter-finals of the Africa Cup of Nations in 2019, still with the old nickname.
Thus, all over Africa there are situations in which elephants confront swallows, crocodiles confront wasps or eagles confront the dodo. At first glance, these may be confusing for the uninitiated.
Be that as it may, what is certain is that Africa football is part of the essence of its people. Like everywhere else, "it starts conversations and ends them, it creates sudden friendships and breaks them, it speeds up procedures and bogs them down. Football brings cultures together, erases borders and blurs social classes", as Ramón Lobo describes so well in his book El autoestopista de Grozni y otras historias de fútbol y guerra (The Grozny Hitchhiker and other stories of football and war). But in Africa, football has a peculiarity that is not found in other parts of the world, and which the great journalist also observed: "One changes nationality, beliefs and sex, but never changes football team. Not even in Africa. There, changing teams is neither a crime nor a betrayal. It is a question of survival: nobody chooses voluntary suffering. If life brings you misery, you are not for football defeats and rival ex-guerrilla gangs laughing in your face with impunity".
Sometimes, when watching a football match in an African stadium or in a maquis or a popular bar, the action is not so much on the pitch, but in the people who follow it. The comments, the shouting, the complaints, the arguments... give the spectacle a very special aura. And if you experience all this accompanied by a cold local beer, then you get the impression that you have arrived where you belong.