Angry Bird: Brazil's World Cup mascot popular with fans
It took an angry-looking bird to get Brazilians hooked on their World Cup mascot.
The team's new mascot — a yellow canary with an angry 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.
Fans unofficially dubbed it the "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."
The bird, always dressed in Brazil's traditional yellow and blue uniform, resembles an angry-faced Tweety, the Looney Tunes character from Warner Bros.
It boasts a "bad boy" attitude and a tough-looking walk, contrasting to the cute image of the unpopular canary that had always represented the national team.
Brazil historically 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 same expression you would see in Neymar's face in a World Cup final or in someone playing a pickup game among friends on a Monday night."
The idea was to give the mascot a look and demeanor 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.
The angry-looking Brazilian mascot, created in late 2016, also became popular outside of the realms of soccer, as it represents the population's overall dissatisfaction in a country facing an ongoing political crisis, increased violence and unstable economy.