Goleo VI
Goleo VI was the official mascot of the 2006 World Cup in Germany. It represented a lion ( lat. Leo , "lion") holding a speaking football called pill (lat. Pila "ball") in his hand.
Goleo
Goleo was dressed in a soccer jersey and still without pants , but equipped with soccer shoes.
The name contains several football-related word games , on the one hand the English word goal (in other languages also gol , both German goal) was indirectly included (Goleo → "Goal-eo") and on the other hand the Spanish exclamation Olé (Goleo → "G- olé-o "). In addition, the name is a mix of the English word "go" (go; go) and the Latin "leo" (lion), so the name "Goleo" is a cheer: "Los Löwe!" The addition “the sixth” or “VI” in Roman numerals evokes associations with the World Cup year 200 6 as King Football .
There is also a fictional biography of the character on the FIFA website, according to which Goleo got his name when his father supposedly cheered him on with “Go, Leo, Go!” When he played football. The title “the sixth” goes back to the fact that Goleo's design was presented in sixth place at the final round of the casting for the official mascot.
Goleo and Pille were played by four teams of professional puppeteers . The first line-up for Goleo was Martin Paas , who worked on Sesame Street , among other things . The coordination of Goleo was considered difficult because the outside view was not through the usual peepholes, but through a camera in Goleo's eyes and a cameraman, and the images in the interior were transferred to an LCD monitor . Despite his body length of 2.30 m, Goleo VI was amazingly agile. This he put u. a. demonstrated in the goal wall shooting against Franz Beckenbauer and Pelé .
The character appeared in the video for the song Love Generation by Bob Sinclar and Gary 'Nesta' Pine , which was not the official song for the World Cup. Goleo also performed with Lumidee and Fatman Scoop with the song Dance! on.
pill
Pill was Goleo's speaking companion in the shape of a soccer ball. The speaking ball was moved by a second person via remote control.
The expression "pill" (a corruption of the Latin word for "ball", "pila") has been used colloquially in the language of schoolchildren since the 1920s to refer to a soccer ball or handball . The term has lost its popularity in the last few decades, but is still widespread in some parts of Germany.
Manufacturing
Goleo was made by the Jim Henson Company, best known for the Muppets and Sesame Street . It is said to have cost around € 250,000 and was unique.
The Franconian toy manufacturer NICI , which was a licensed manufacturer of Goleo figures for Europe, filed for bankruptcy on May 16, 2006. The low level of buying interest in Goleo - instead of the expected 35 million euros, only revenues of 14 million euros and 3.5 million euros in license fees were achieved - was not the cause of the bankruptcy, but only aggravated the company's already precarious financial situation .
criticism
The mascot met with little enthusiasm in public. Especially a crazy first appearance on the TV show Wetten, dass ..? on November 13, 2004 led to scorn and ridicule in the media. Showmaster Thomas Gottschalk asked whether Goleo's grandmother was a lama who was blasphemed by the Süddeutsche Zeitung , Goleo's tail resembled “a Florida palm tree battered by a hurricane”, others spoke briefly of “long misery” or “shaggy cattle”. The designer Erik Spiekermann made a damning verdict in the magazine Der Spiegel with the statement that Goleo deserves “penalty points for stupidity”. The fact that the figure was not wearing pants was also irritating in some countries.
Öko-Test examined the Goleo doll from the manufacturer NICI for the June 2006 issueand found dibutyl tin , a substance for fire protection thatcan impairthe human immune system and fertility.
See also
swell
- ↑ André Görke: "I was Goleo". In: Der Tagesspiegel. June 9, 2007, accessed July 18, 2010 .
- ↑ Nici boss: Suspicion of serious fraud ( Memento from May 23, 2006 in the Internet Archive ), BR-Online from May 22, 2006
- ↑ Öko-Test June 2006, test: Soccer World Cup, fan articles; partly available online for free: page 5 ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
