Angry Bird: Brazil’s World Cup mascot
SOCHI, RUSSIA — It took an angry-looking bird to get Brazilians hooked on their World Cup mascot.
Canarinho, the yellow canary with a furious face that represents some of the fans’ frustration after having lost the World Cup at home four years ago, has become a huge sensation everywhere it goes in Russia.
The bird, always dressed in Brazil’s traditional yellow and blue uniform, resembles an irate Tweety, the Looney Tunes character. Fans have even dubbed their feathered friend “Canarinho Pistola,” which translates to “Pissed Off Little Canary” or “Angry Little Canary.”
“Man, what a character he is,” Brazil coach Tite said. “He has his own charisma.”
Canarinho boasts a “bad boy” attitude and has a tough-looking strut, contrasting to the cute image of the unpopular canary that had always represented the national team. Brazil never fully embraced the tradition of mascots in sports, but things changed when the Brazilian soccer federation — inspired in part by Chicago Bull’s Benny the Bull — turned its nice little canary into a mad-looking figure to try to bring fans closer to the “Selecao” ahead of the 2018 World Cup.
“We wanted to represent this desire of the Brazilian to always want to win in soccer,” federation marketing director Gilberto Ratto told The Associated Press in Russia. “The mascot has the face that every Brazilian puts on when they are about to go play soccer, always with that determination to win. It’s the type of expression we would expect to see in Neymar’s face in a World Cup final.”
The idea was to give the mascot a look and demeanour that would bode well with a younger generation, and the canary has a similar personality as the one displayed by Benny the Bull, which became popular in the United States for trolling fans and taunting opposing players during games.
Created in late 2016, Canarinho has become popular outside of soccer. It has come to represent the population’s overall dissatisfaction in a country facing an ongoing political crisis, increased violence and unstable economy. The federation tried to use a mascot with a nicer face, but it had to give up because everyone kept asking for the meaner-looking mascot.